Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2020 i Watercolor Artist

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Anne Hevener SENIOR DESIGNER Brian Roeth SENIOR EDITOR Beth Williams ASSOCIATE EDITOR McKenzie Graham ADVERTISING ADVERTISING CONSULTANT Mary McLane Northeastern, Western U.S. & International; 970/290-6065mmclane@goldenpeakmedia.com ADVERTISING CONSULTANT Kaline Carter Southeastern U.S.; 505/730-9301kcarter@goldenpeakmedia.com MEDIA SALES COORDINATOR Barb Prill 800/283-0963, ext. 13435; bprill@goldenpeakmedia.com PEAK MEDIA PROPERTIES CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Gregory J. Osberg SVP, GROUP PUBLISHER David Pyle VP, MAGAZINES John Phelan VP, PRODUCT AND STRATEGY Josiah Klebaner CONTENT DIRECTOR Tricia Waddell NEWSSTAND SALES Scott T. Hill scott.hill@procirc.com…

STUDIO STAPLES Faber-Castell Set of 24 Watercolours [$45] These highly pigmented watercolors are available for pre-order in February and come with a detachable mixing palette that’s easy to clean, as well as a water tank brush, perfect for grabbing on the go. The paints will be available in a set of 36 or 48. FABER-CASTELL.COM Watercolor Instagram Story Highlights [$10] Perfect for the social-media savvy artist who doesn’t want to mess with Photoshop, Chloe Sweeney’s Etsy shop offers a pack of 200 downloadable Instagram story highlights painted in watercolor for organizing all of your account’s best stories. ETSY.COM/SHOP/CHLOESWEENEYDESIGN ON THE SHELVES How Turner Painted: Materials & Techniques [$25] Read about Joseph Mallord William Turner’s innovative use of watercolor—and study it, too, in 200 high-quality color reproductions—in Turner-expert Dr.…

“Simplification can occur during every step of creating a painting to make a scene more interesting and impactful than you found it,” Vrscak says. He suggests leaving the following behind: Tiny shapes. Complex subjects contain many small, contrasting, hard-edged shapes that create confusion and destroy clarity in a painting. Create and connect areas of like values instead. Large darks. They can devour small lights. Instead, use middle values to lay a strong foundation for your painting and then place darks—and lights—sparingly and carefully to add sparkle and interest. Insignificant information. Don’t clutter your painting with details that add little or nothing to the overall visual statement, just because they’re in the subject. Surface details. They call attention to themselves and can weaken a form’s sense of volume. Perfection. Concentrate on…

Bivenne Harvey Staiger (bivennefineart.com), of Cromwell, Conn., has a BFA from SUNY/Stony Brook. She gives painting demonstrations throughout southern New England and in central Connecticut. She’s a member and former vice president of the Connecticut Watercolor Society, as well as a member of the Salmagundi Club, North East Watercolor Society and New England Watercolor Society, among others. She has won numerous state and national awards, including the Silver Award from the American Watercolor Society in 2019 for Oh, the Tangled Woods She Leaves! (opposite). She also has participated in both solo and group exhibitions.…

• Remember that value takes precedence over the color palette. • Think about which colors offer brilliant light values, not just any color with a lot of water added to it. • Keep in mind that colors are inherently light, medium and dark and should be used as strong color at the value range natural to them. • Consider how you can deploy layers to create a color instead of just mixing it up in the pan. • Break out from the expected. Why are you using the local color of a subject? Are there other sets of colors you could use to offer another version of that subject? • Show the forms that are in a dark shadow before actually laying that shadow down. Something was there before that…

“I took the reference photo for this painting at a chalk art festival held on the runway of a small community airport in Florida, where hundreds of chalk artists from around the world were working. It was overwhelming to me that so many dedicated artists had chosen chalk as their medium for expression, knowing that rains would be coming soon and their art would be lost forever. I wanted to tell their stories because of my admiration for them and their sincere efforts. “I took hundreds of pictures, but the subject in my painting seemed to stand out. Her back was facing the camera, and her attention was totally focused, as though communicating with the chalk figures she was creating. She was my inspiration. I wondered if I could capture…

SURFACE • Arches 110- or 300.lb- cold-pressed paper PAINTS • Winsor & Newton: titanium white, burnt sienna, burnt umber, lamp black, yellow ochre, Winsor green, ultramarine, cerulean blue, cobalt blue, alizarin crimson, cadmium red light, Winsor violet, lemon yellow, cadmium yellow medium, cadmium orange • Holbein: opera BRUSHES • kolinsky 4, 8 and 12 rounds and 1½-inch flat, jumbo drafting brush MISCELLANEOUS • John Pike palette, artist’s tape, masking fluid, Masquepen and Winsor & Newton frisket…

Last summer, a friend posted on Facebook a photo of several four-leaf clovers and one five-leaf clover that her son had found in the field while playing ultimate frisbee. I’m not sure how he kept his head in the game while also keeping his eyes trained on the ground, but clearly the kid has a special gift for seeing detail. And now, he has a bunch of luck to go along with it. “If you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for a moment.”—GEORGIA O’KEEFFE (1887–1986) A lot has been said about the importance of keen observation in the development of an artist’s skills. Being a practiced observer allows you to look at an object as it really is rather than how…

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has hired its first full-time curator to head its collection of Native North American art, the Charles and Valerie Diker Collection, held in the American wing. In the job posting, the museum wrote that the position should have “demonstrable connections with descendent communities” and the know-how to “develop robust collaborations and partnerships with indigenous community members.” The collection’s 116 objects from more than 50 Native American cultures are on display for an ongoing exhibition, “Art of Native America: The Charles and Valerie Diker Collection,” although the exhibition’s title drew criticism from the Association of American Indian Affairs, which pointed out that the majority of the show’s objects were “sacred ceremonial objects, cultural patrimony and burial objects” rather than “art,” and may…

Signage tells us so much about a culture. The aesthetics of signage reveal information about prevailing taste, fashion and even local identity. The words themselves reveal a lot about communication style, advertising trends, cultural identity and socioeconomic information. They also describe needs and desires. And,of course, the age and condition of a sign tells us about the passage of time and the changing history of a place. Many signs are masterpieces of simple direct communication without words, much like early cave paintings.…

Bill Vrscak (billvrscak.com), of Pittsburgh, Penn., is a representational painter whose work reflects a strong sense of freshness and simplicity, consistent with his attitude that “the simplest statements make the most impact.” The frequent national award-winning artist is a signature member of the American Watercolor Society and a member of the Pittsburgh Society of Illustrators, the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh Watercolor Society. In addition to painting and doing freelance illustration and commission work, he teaches weekly painting workshops in the spring and fall. The artist’s dog, Riley, keeps him company in the studio and often leads him by the leash to new paintings. “Every day I walk him through the neighborhood, and he has his own agenda,” Vrscak says. “He takes me to places I’d never walk…

says Donald K. Lake. “A great watercolor also demonstrates something unique to the medium. Knowing your medium and always searching it for new ways is, I believe, fundamental to any artist.” Lake, who has been painting for more than half a century and is the 2018 recipient of the Watercolor USA Honor Society Lifetime Achievement Award, knows of what he speaks. “Transparent watercolor invites a slow building of layers to reveal depth and a resonant quality of color,” he says, “but it also offers a bold and dynamic immediacy that’s both historic and of this moment. “I think of this medium as operating in a triangle, with controlled layering at one vertex, wet-into-wet dynamics at another, and textural and active brushwork at the third,” he continues. “Most great watercolors use…

“Don’t try to impress with a range of subject matter and styles. Present a cohesive, interrelated group of paintings.” BRIAN RUTENBERG “Make sure your piece encompasses the basic principles of art: composition, color, line, shape, form, value, space and texture. You’ll be one step ahead.” CHRIS KRUPINSKI “Send what you sincerely feel is your best work.” KAREN FREY “Splurge on professional photography. No iPhone shots of a painting leaning against your closet door.” BRIAN RUTENBERG “Don’t try to guess what a juror might select by looking at how they paint, personally. Any good juror will have a thorough knowledge of which ingredients produce a good painting.” KAREN FREY “Choose a subject that’s atypical and tells a story. A pretty painting might sell well, but it probably won’t stand out among…

Step 1 (detail) After the drawing is complete, I apply light washes of Winsor violet and burnt sienna to map out my plan, but I save as much of the white paper as possible. Step 2 (detail) At this stage, I adjust the drawing and composition. I begin to build value and color intensity using a touch of Winsor green, ultramarine and yellow ochre. To tighten the appearance of the weeds, I drybrush using burnt sienna. Step 3 (detail) I push the dark values, mixing small amounts of lamp black and burnt sienna with other colors. I use yellow ochre to unite the work. Final I then push color and value to its full intensity, using Winsor green for the pine trees, burnt sienna for the deciduous trees and alizarin…

When Judy Saltzman (judysaltzman.com) was struck by the natural beauty of a state park in Georgia, she set out to capture the American landscape in paint. Like many artists before her, Saltzman wondered exactly how to capture such grandeur on paper—and thus, her large-scale, multipanel works were born. “I learned that our national parks face numerous issues, like climate change, invasive species, water usage and funding,” says Saltzman. “I was hooked, and submitted a proposal for an exhibition, which was accepted.” A little while after her fateful trip to Georgia, Saltzman was awarded a set of Daniel Smith PrimaTek mineral-based watercolor paints. “After experimenting and discovering their inherent earthiness,” she says, “I knew how to approach these paintings. I loved the fact that they’re made from minerals.” The paints would…

The California Watercolor Association (CWA) is hosting a national exhibition to celebrate its 50th anniversary. The show will display 85 juried paintings from nearly 600 entries, chosen by popular watercolorist John Salminen. Artist Michael Reardon is also participating, as awards juror. “We’ve transitioned from a small group of East Bay plein air painters to more than 600 members,” says Ruth Miller, CWA national director. “Our goal is to foster an interest in watermedia through our outreach programs, education, demonstrations, workshops, local art shows and our annual national exhibition. Successfully hosting 50 national exhibitions demonstrates our commitment to the watercolor world.” CALIFORNIAWATERCOLOR.ORG…

A giant of 19th-century art, Honoré Daumier (French, 1808–1879) had scant formal schooling as an artist. His family couldn’t afford to pay for a traditional art education, so Daumier received private lessons and attended life classes without a teacher. The unconventional path paid off; he mastered lithography, small-scale sculpture and painting, and was the greatest editorial cartoonist who ever lived. Above all, Daumier was an extraordinary draftsman. Few artists have matched his ability to transcribe the essential character of a subject, often with a perfect, emphatic gesture. Early on, his talents proved too effective. When only 24 years old, Daumier was “honored” with a six-month jail sentence for drawing a scathing caricature of Louis-Philippe, the French king. A few years later, he drew Rue Transnonain, the depiction of a massacre…

PAPER: • Vrscak regularly uses 140-lb. cold-pressed watercolor paper, always 100-percent rag, stapled or taped onto ⅜-inch plywood or ½ -inch Gator Board. “Lesser rag content will never produce the same effects that 100-percent cotton paper will,” he says. PAINTS: • Vrscak uses a limited palette of six colors, a warm and cool version of each primary: aureolin (or cadmium lemon or Hansa yellow), cadmium yellow medium, cadmium red medium (or Winsor red or cadmium scarlet), permanent alizarin crimson (or permanent rose or rose madder), ultramarine blue (or cobalt blue) and phthalo blue (or Winsor blue, green shade, or Holbein marine blue). On occasion, he’ll supplement with an additional color or swap out one of these colors to experiment. He always keeps his wells filled with fresh paint. “While it’s…

from on-location sketches, Lake doesn’t create complete preliminary studies. Instead, he begins drawing directly onto the sheet, using a rudimentary grid system—marking off the photos and edges of the paper horizontally and vertically in halves and quarters. Although he has projected an image on some occasions, he much prefers hand rendering. “A projection usually results in a mindless copying of edges in a complex set of chaotic marks devoid of emotional response,” Lake says. “My view is that the photo is just an aid to getting something on the sheet. In a freehand drawing, a lot of the image is altered, and forms are rearranged and edited. This way, the photo doesn’t impersonally dictate everything to the artist. The artwork becomes something that’s truly yours.” Serious Series Teaching realistic drawing,…

“Yellow can be a challenging color in a main subject,” says artist Brenda Swenson (swensonsart.net). “I like to start with a solid drawing, but yellow pigment seals pencil lines, and I wanted to do an underpainting with lots of yellow. As an experiment, I tried something a little different. I used a waterproof Pitt Brush Pen by Faber-Castell. The drawing remained after I applied the underpainting and created a soft glow to the edges of the flowers.” YOUR TURN! How do you handle yellow? Create some sketches that showcase the sunny color and tag us with your favorite page. @ArtistsNetwork on Instagram: #everywatercolor_yellow…