About Barbara Fox

Barbara has achieved a tremendous following on both the national and international level as a watercolor painter with a vivid and unique style.

Her paintings have been featured in solo and group exhibitions in museums and galleries throughout the United States, including the Phillips Museum of Art in Lancaster, Pennsylvania; the Millicent Rogers Museum in Taos, Mexico; the Salmagundi Club New York City; The Neville Museum in Green Bay Wisconsin; and the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts

Barbara is a signature member of the National Watercolor Society, the International Guild of Realism, the Pennsylvania Watercolor Society, and the Northeast Watercolor Society, among others.

She has been published in the major watercolor publications Splash: the Best of Watercolor Painting, and  Secrets of Watercolor Masters. Barbara has been a featured artist in the leading national art magazines American Artist and Watercolor Magic.

Barbara is represented by the Oxford Gallery, 267 Oxford Street, Rochester, NY 14607

Visit Barbara’s Websites Today:

Main Website

Barbara Fox – Daily Paintings

Barbara Fox Studio

Barbara Fox Art Studio

3 MacIntosh Apples – Watercolour Painting Demonstration

3 MacIntosh Apples watercolor 11 x 11"

This demonstration uses lots of richly colored layers.

Paints I used (These paints are either Winsor Newton or M. Graham brand paints):

• Dioxazine Violet
• Permanent Rose
• Napthol Red (Cadmium Red medium is comparable)
• Cadmium Orange
• Alizarin Crimson
• Sap Green
• Hookers Green
• Prussian Blue
• Ultramarine Blue
• Cobalt Blue
• Burnt Umber
• Burnt Sienna
• Raw Sienna
• Sepia

Paper I use is Jack Richeson 300 # cold press watercolor paper

Here is the photograph I worked from. I generally do a simple outline drawing, then blow it up to the size I want to paint.

Here is the drawing.

Step 1. Base Layer

My first layer of wash I call the “Base Layer”. This is generally a wet on wet wash using the actual colors of the subject, in this case, red and green for the apples (Permanent Rose*, Napthol Red, and Sap Green). The apples were first wet with pure water, then the colors were applied by just touching the brush to the paper. The paint is carried by the water, and the 2 colors mix beautifully, with just a few nudges of the brush. Too much brushwork at this point would muddy the colors. Remember, there are lots of layers of color to come, so there is plenty of time to tweak the image. Also, leave white areas for the very light areas and highlights on the apple.

A close up of one apple, Step 1:

The apples were first wet with pure water

Then the colors were applied by just touching the brush to the paper.
Leave white areas for the very light areas and highlights on the apple.

The paint is carried by the water, and the 2 colors mix beautifully, with just a few nudges of the brush.

An extra bit of Permanent Rose on the lower left side, and blotting the hard edge around the stem.

The wash under the lace material is Burnt Sienna, Dioxazine Violet, and Permanent Rose, all flooded into a wet wash. Again, notice how well they mix when added to the wet paper. The background wash is Burnt Umber, Dioxazine Violet, and Ultramarine Blue.

Step 2. Shadows (photo above)

I use Dioxazine Violet to paint the shadows on the apples, leaving the highlighted areas.
I begin painting the shadows and the detail on the lace using Dioxazine Violet, Cobalt Blue, and Raw Sienna. I don’t mix them, but just dip my brush into a different color from time to time, and let them mix themselves. It can look a little garish at this point, but I know I will be painting over them again , and the shadows will eventually be darkened which will unify the colors.

The lace detail and shadow is coming along. Although painting the lace is tedious, I know that rendering it carefully will make a better painting.

Step 3. Second Layer (photos above and below)

I painted a layer of Ultramarine Blue in the background, and a layer of Burnt Umber below the lace. You can see where I have a few more holes to fill in the lace. I painted another layer of green (Sap Green) and red (this time Alizarin Crimson) on the apples.

For Layer #2 on the apples, I wet the entire apple with water, then flood in the colors**. Remember to leave the highlights.

I painted a very light layer of Raw Sienna over the entire lace area. This helps unify the colors that I used for the shadows, and keeps the material from being too glaringly white, and attention grabbing.

Step 4. Value adjusting (photo above)

The painting needs deeper shadows, and I would like the apples to have richer colors. I paint over the apple’s shadows using Dioxazine Purple in the red areas, and Prussian Blue in the green areas. I paint a little Cobalt Blue on the highlight on the middle apple, and a wee bit of Cadmium Orange on the top right of the first apple.

I deepen some parts if the folds in the lace, and work on the lace detail a little more.

Step 5. Details (photo above)

Another layer of Alizarin Crimson and Sap Green on the apple, this time with a little Hookers Green for the cooler green areas.

I use Dioxazine Violet and Sepia on the stems of the apple. I deepen the shadows between the apples using Dioxazine Violet and Ultramarine Blue, with a little Alizarin Crimson.

More detail work on the lace, and another layer of Dioxazine Violet under the lace AND in the background.***

The final step is making really dark areas darker (the stems, and shadows right under the apples), and lightening some highlights. I scrub out some lighter areas around the stems, and the highlights and reflected lights with a small, stiff brush and plenty of water.

* when painting a red subject, I usually start with Permanent Rose. It is a rich and warm pink, and looks better then a lighter wash of Alizarin Crimson. I use Alizarin Crimson for dark, intense reds, but a washy version looks dull to me.

** Doesn’t the water wash out the color underneath? No, not as long as you aren’t brushing it too much. The dry paint will stay put for the most part, unless it is disturbed with a lot of brushing. Water, good, Brush, bad.

*** Why so much Dioxazine Violet??? Not quite sure why, but I love it. It is a lovely purple, but also the perfect neutral. It seems to work great as a shadow color on any other color, and seems to cool when a color needs to be cooled, or warm when a color needs to be warmed. Take note, that I almost never mix it with another color, but use it as a wash over another color.

About Steve Fleming

Good art is the result of hard work and dedication. It only happens when the artist finds his or her own story to tell and then learns to do so with his or her own unique language.

I am an artist who works in watercolor and acrylic, and I teach both for The Art League in Alexandria, Virginia, as well as workshops across the country and abroad. My goal as an artist is to be creative; my goal as a teacher is to help my students learn to interpret the world around them, not to promote the belief the goal of art is the perfect rendering of a subject. One of my core messages: art is a creative process and is not just the sum total of the work we sell. In this era of digital cameras, I caution artists to look — really look both inside and outside — for the subject matter that lights our artistic fires. Otherwise, our work will be lacking everything but technique.

Click over to my blog for behind-the-scenes insight into some of my paintings in progress, musings and a few complimentary lessons for you to take and learn from.

Enjoy. — Steve Fleming

Creative Jumpstart

The “Creative Jumpstart” section of  Steve’s blog is designed to help all artists, regardless of medium, with ideas to get them thinking in expressive ways. They are intended to take about 30 minutes to an hour to finish and are warm-ups not finished paintings. Each one has a specific focus, such as gestural drawing with color accents, and they will be of value to artists of all levels. I plan to do at least 1 per week and hope to challenge readers to really broaden their horizons and move beyond their comfort zones. Along the way the artists will enhance their skills in drawing, color usage and have general less fear when being creative.

Follow this link to learn more!

Demonstration: “Tranquility, Reflections”

In this Demonstration we will be working on created a nice peaceful painting that is emphasizing the simplicity of calm water reflections. Drawing the boats will be fairly easy if you remember to keep them flat and in perspective with a low horizon. Here goes have a nice time with this it should air out all of your brushwork practice.

15 x 22 watercolor paper cold pressed drawing with a 4B pencil

wet the paper completely and let the water set up for a few minutes and try to angle the paper higher at the top than the bottom so the water will run down toward the bottom. This will keep it from pooling in the middle of the paper. Run a couple passes of Raw Sienna paint horizontally in the sky followed by a couple horizontal passes of Cobalt and Cerulean Blue. Pull some of the blue into the water under the boats.

Using a round brush a size 12 works for me pull some Cobalt Blue at the horizon line indicating a loose feeling of distant land then drop in some Raw Sienna. Don’t rub these colors or they will turn a nasty grey you want the colors to stay separate. Pull a little Raw Sienna into the foreground water.

Staying with the number 12 round brush and painting with the side of the brush not the point start up in the trees with a mixture of Sap Green, Raw Sienna, Burnt Sienna and Ultramarine Blue begin to get a nice rough textural passage of trees make sure you are leaving openings in the trees. This involves the trees and the sky and makes the trees look real. A point I need to make here is that when I say use the colors I am not brushing them together in a big pool of mushy colors I am adding colors to the mixture and letting the added colors have a voice or show up on the paper. Using the side of the brush get a wash of Raw Sienna with a hint of Sap Green onto the rocks. Leave lights on the rocks and remember to cut around the top edges of the boats.

Still using the round brush I add a mixture of Alizirin Crimson and Burnt Sienna to the rocks creating shadow forms and I leave some Raw Sienna showing for the light. I really clean up the edge of the boats not cutting them out of the background.

detail of the rocks and the cutting around of the boats, notice the texture at the bottom edge of the rocks it looks like water moving, the darker pieces on the rocks is the Alizirin, Burnt Sienna mixture with some Ultramarine Blue added to get a rich dark. I drop that in while everything is still damp so the edges will stay lively.

I repeat all of the colors from above with a series of very fluid brush marks to create the feeling of gentle movement in the water. Notice that I am not trying to exactly repeat the objects that are being reflected I am just getting the impression of the objects. Don’t be afraid to use lots of color and bold brushwork. leave lights and leave the color of the sky. I then used a Raw Sienna mixture with some of the left over Alizirin mixture to paint the warmer sides of the boats and dropped in a little Cobalt Blue on the transom of the left boat. I used a cool grey, Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Sienna, mixture to indicate the shadow forms inside the boats and dropped few dark accents into these to make them more vibrant.

Add in some dark lines and a few dark dots and dashes and the painting is finished. I used a number 6 liner brush to make the fine detail marks in the water and in the trees above. Use a lot of restraint when doing details nothing ruins a painting quicker than over doing the details. Enjoy painting this it will test your brushwork and application of paint skills.

Here is a wonderfully informative video by Artist Paul Taggart that discusses and demonstrates various wet on wet watercolor painting techniques.  Wet on wet technique is simply the process of applying wet pigment to wet paper. The wet on wet watercolor painting technique is not an easy technique to master and is one that causes a lot of problems for beginners.  In the following video, Paul will provide you with some great tips and solutions to overcoming the various problems folks run into while using this technique. Now you can finally enjoy your watercolor painting sessions instead of becoming frustrated by them.

I wanted to just highlight one problem and solution that Paul talks about in the video as it was one that really stood out for me personally.  The problem: When applying watercolor paint to the wet surface, the paint immediately starts to run and bleed every where or perhaps puddle up in spots.  This is of course a really big problem that can make painting a very difficult process.  The solution? The solution is to  remove excess fluid from the brush before you make your next brush stroke.  Sounds simple enough, but its the process of removing the excess fluid that can give folks a difficult time.  This is demonstrated in the video below.  There are a couple of different ways to remove the excess fluid.  You could simply move your brush from side to side on your palette in a downward direction, or, you can use the edge of your palette to gently remove the fluid. This is done by pushing down on the edge with the brush while moving either left or right.  This not only removes fluid, but it also reshapes your brush into a nice chiseled edge.  Learn more by watching the video below!

“Painting Problem Solver” by Paul Taggart — Starting Off in Wet-on-Wet Watercolours

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIL16fW-I6I

A really big thanks to Paul Taggart for making this video tutorial available on the Wet on Wet Watercolour Painting Techniques.  You can learn more about Paul, see more of his videos and view his artwork by following the links below:

Visit Paul’s YouTube Channel Here

Visit Paul’s Website Here

About Steve Fleming

Good art is the result of hard work and dedication. It only happens when the artist finds his or her own story to tell and then learns to do so with his or her own unique language.

I am an artist who works in watercolor and acrylic, and I teach both for The Art League in Alexandria, Virginia, as well as workshops across the country and abroad. My goal as an artist is to be creative; my goal as a teacher is to help my students learn to interpret the world around them, not to promote the belief the goal of art is the perfect rendering of a subject. One of my core messages: art is a creative process and is not just the sum total of the work we sell. In this era of digital cameras, I caution artists to look — really look both inside and outside — for the subject matter that lights our artistic fires. Otherwise, our work will be lacking everything but technique.

Click over to my blog for behind-the-scenes insight into some of my paintings in progress, musings and a few complimentary lessons for you to take and learn from.

Enjoy. — Steve Fleming

Creative Jumpstart

The “Creative Jumpstart” section of  Steve’s blog is designed to help all artists, regardless of medium, with ideas to get them thinking in expressive ways. They are intended to take about 30 minutes to an hour to finish and are warm-ups not finished paintings. Each one has a specific focus, such as gestural drawing with color accents, and they will be of value to artists of all levels. I plan to do at least 1 per week and hope to challenge readers to really broaden their horizons and move beyond their comfort zones. Along the way the artists will enhance their skills in drawing, color usage and have general less fear when being creative.

Follow this link to learn more!

Give Some thought to the Color Palette and the Effect Can be Remarkable

(Click Images For Larger Views)

Every time you decide to paint, a major decision is going to be how to use color. This is not as simple as use a dark blue for the sky or make a red piece a purple piece; those are selective choices inside a bigger arena. What I am talking about is are your values, the lightness and darkness of your colors, going to be concentrated in the lighter values, the middle, or a broad range, or are you going to use very bright intense colors, grayed colors, or a stark light and dark palette. This color decision is very important and one that is overlooked in the paintings of the painter who is just reproducing the perfect photo. In this world a big decision is to change the color of the trashcan from blue to dark blue, wow not that’s creative.

In this lesson I will be painting the same wonderful sunlit New England building, each time handling the color and values differently. I think you will see how the changing of the color palette and the contrast of value can really make a huge difference in the mood and feeling of your painting.

In the first painting I have used a very narrow value range and focused on early spring light greens and yellows.  The shadow on the building is a very light value mixed from Cobalt Blue, Cobalt Violet and a hint of Raw Sienna.  Since it is a white building I want the shadow to look white and I really tried to get a feeling of the warm bounce light that would be visible with this much sun on such a clear day.  I accented the feeling of sun with the warmth in the windows.  The green on the trees and in the foregrounds were mixed with the same colors, Hansa Yellow, New Gamboge, Cobalt Blue and some Raw Sienna in the details of the tree trunks.  I scraped out the Trees with a small penknife.  The foreground gradation is a warm mix of Hansa Yellow, New Gamboge, and Cobalt Blue with Olive Green mixed in to the field on the right.  I splattered wet Raw Sienna and Burnt Sienna into the field with a round brush when the colors were still wet.

Remember to keep the values of the painting light, to use vibrant colors, to really pay attention to the lightness and the color of the shadow this color is  not purple or a flat lifeless grey.

For the second painting I have chosen a more neutral color palette, Burnt Sienna, Ultramarine Blue, Raw Sienna, Cobalt Violet.  The value range of the painting is much darker and is more focused in the middle ranges.  I will be using very little white although there will be the occasional highlights around the painting.  I decide to add some water to the painting and from the very start I know I want to have a real dark agitated edge at the waterline and I make sure that I apply the paint with the side of my brush to get a nice active edge.

There is much more brushwork in the foreground and I have put a lot more interest in the lower portion of the painting.  I think it would be really boring if it were a graded field like in the first painting.

The building is a mix of Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Sienna with some Raw Sienna to warm up some of the walls.  I painted around the one window to give the effect of being able to see through the window.  I textured the roof with a light mixture similar to the color on the walls, I use the side of a round brush to apply the paint and then splattered some color on it to give some details.  Where the trees meet the dark side of the building I lose some edge between the building and the trees and cut around some little highlights to give the painting depth.  I also cut around some random shapes at the bottom of the facing wall of the build again this gives that area some strong depth.  Working in grayed colors is not easy; first if you don’t remember to vary your colors the mixtures will be boring, and if you rub the paint too much you will get very flat and uninteresting passages of color.  Remember to grade your major shapes and to vary your details, brushwork and colors.  A grayed color palette can produce a boring painting if you don’t put enough effort into subtle changes.  It requires a very thoughtful approach but can result in very nice paintings.  Just look at Andrew Wyeth.

In the third version, I am trying to get a very strong stark feeling of light. Using a value range from lightest light to darkest dark and very rich colors with lots of active brushwork and scraping, I have produced a much more powerful painting.  The light jumps off of the paper.  The shadow on the house is a touch darker but is still transparent and I made it using the same mixture I used in the first version, Cobalt Blue, Cobalt Violet, and a hint of Raw Sienna.  I occasionally will use some Cadmium Scarlet to gray the mixture and it adds a nice warmth.  After running the cast and form shadows on the house I dropped in some Raw Sienna at the top of the shadow and let it bleed down into the wash.  I think I went a little too far but better some than none.  On the left side of the house, with the porch, I have lightened the shadows and put more warm colors in.  This gives a much better feeling of bounced light.  Note the pieces of white paper I have left at the bottom of the tree line this both adds interest and a sense of depth.

The foreground is painted with very rich middle valued colors, which are heavy on pigment and light on water.  Too much water and the colors will be too diluted and weak.  I made a big change in color across the foreground from very rich Raw Sienna on the left with a touch of Sap Green, and in the middle I moved the mixture to a dominance of Sap Green and then back to a more Raw Sienna/Sap Green mixture on the far right.  The bottom of the painting is a mixture of the field colors plus Ultramarine Blue, and Burnt Sienna and this is applied with very little water and very aggressive brushwork.  I scraped out the weeds and rocks with a scraper and a knife.  A point to remember is that when I put together these mixes I am not over brushing them on the palette creating a one dimensional boring mix, but rather I am just mixing them a little and trying to preserve each color as a distinctive part of the mix.  Try not to over mix your colors and you will have more vibrant and translucent washes.

The last version of the house is light filled but the colors are very warm and summery.  The trees in the background have a more modeled feeling than in the previous versions and the value range is very wide.  The brushwork in the back of the painting is supported by the amount of detail in the foreground.  This is necessary if you want the background to stay in place and not come forward.  The heart of the painting is in the foreground with its scattered pieces of light and active brushwork.  The paint was applied with the side of a number 16 round brush, I use a Silver Black Velvet brush they are great and fairly inexpensive.  I really moved the brush along and varied the color and angle as much as it made sense.  Too many direction changes and the foreground will get very confusing.  I splattered a few darks in and scraped the smaller weeds.  The shadows on the house are the same mixes as before but I did shorten the shadows.  The tree line behind the house was started with New Gamboge and I added cool dark greens on top of the yellow the get a strong-modeled form.  The rich warm tones in the trees are a mixture of New Gamboge, Raw Sienna, and probably Cadmium Scarlet.

The trees were painted in one continuous process, no time out for drying.  Just keep using less water as the process goes on and keep changing the color and brushwork.  I scraped the trees out with a knife and added some dark details with a number 6 Script Liner also from Silver Black Velvet line.

I hope you enjoyed this lesson on how changing the color and values can really add to your interpretation of a repeated subject.  If you like a theme than get some mileage out of it and really let go of the one approach is best attitude.

About Steve Fleming

Good art is the result of hard work and dedication. It only happens when the artist finds his or her own story to tell and then learns to do so with his or her own unique language.

I am an artist who works in watercolor and acrylic, and I teach both for The Art League in Alexandria, Virginia, as well as workshops across the country and abroad. My goal as an artist is to be creative; my goal as a teacher is to help my students learn to interpret the world around them, not to promote the belief the goal of art is the perfect rendering of a subject. One of my core messages: art is a creative process and is not just the sum total of the work we sell. In this era of digital cameras, I caution artists to look — really look both inside and outside — for the subject matter that lights our artistic fires. Otherwise, our work will be lacking everything but technique.

Click over to my blog for behind-the-scenes insight into some of my paintings in progress, musings and a few complimentary lessons for you to take and learn from.

Enjoy. — Steve Fleming

Creative Jumpstart

The “Creative Jumpstart” section of  Steve’s blog is designed to help all artists, regardless of medium, with ideas to get them thinking in expressive ways. They are intended to take about 30 minutes to an hour to finish and are warm-ups not finished paintings. Each one has a specific focus, such as gestural drawing with color accents, and they will be of value to artists of all levels. I plan to do at least 1 per week and hope to challenge readers to really broaden their horizons and move beyond their comfort zones. Along the way the artists will enhance their skills in drawing, color usage and have general less fear when being creative.

Follow this link to learn more!

Abstracting the Shapes, Simplifying the Message

(Click Images For Larger Views)

(“On the Rocks, Bass Head Light” watercolor on paper) The idea in this painting was to create on big shape using the shadow shapes and using that compound form to move the viewer from the upper left corner of the painting down through the figures and out on to the rocks where the people are moving about on the rocks. It leaves some really nice white pieces of paper to contrast against the abstracted shape.

When painting it is easy to become so involved in the subject matter with all of the details, textures, and colors presenting so many possibilities that our paintings never quite have focus or a feeling of unity. Sometimes we achieve nothing more than to present to the viewer either a collection of random thoughts about a place or detail laden color drawing. We paint around the subject never quite making a point. The work lacks creativity and artistic involvement, and the painting lacks a dominance of major shapes. By not focusing on the major shapes we are forced to paint a collection of things and this is a difficult and tedious task.

Sometimes it is a worthwhile exercise to minimize the complexity of the subject matter and reduce the shapes down to three to four major shapes. We need to look at each of these shapes for the quality of their shape, what relationship they have to the other shapes in the painting and what would be the best way to contrast these shapes against one another. Several ways I contrast shapes is by color, value, and texture.

If I am looking for a really dramatic statement I push the relationships between the shapes as far as I can. I use big value jumps, lots of line and texture at the edge of the silhouette, and look for color chords that are rich, expressive, and complementary. I make sure that the edge of the shape is where I create focus and is where I define the identity of the objects. Remember if you put good information at the edge of the shape then you need less details in the interior of the object. Although you have reduced the subject matter down to major shapes in the design phase, you will be able to clarify some of the individual shapes inside the big shapes during the painting process. The goal will be to keep a big shape feel to the painting.

(“Rockport Village” 18 x 24 Watercolor on paper) I have used all of the areas of light and invented a few more and the tied them all together into a shape that moves the viewer up into the painting. Along the path of the light I have added details, textures and color to create a reason for the white paper. It is one shape made up of multiple objects.

It is important to understand that although a shape can be a singular object, it doesn’t have to be. It makes for a really great painting when you can tie several related objects together and create a very expressive shape. As an example Try linking figures together as one value shape, or take a row boat, a figure, a rock and a pole and hook them together into one shape. When we begin to see objects in terms of their potential joining with other things to make larger more dynamic shapes we make a huge jump towards becoming creative shape makers. I believe this is one of the great goals of an artist. This allows you to rearrange the scene in front of you to tell your story with clarity and focus. I believe very strongly that no amount of detail and finish will make a poorly conceived painting work.

(“Camden Harbor” 18 x 24 watercolor on paper) This scene is very complicated and I took all the pieces and made on shape out of them. They are related to each other by a similar value, dark middle value, and again I have only put in the details that are necessary to move you through the painting.

What makes a good shape? A good shape should have a significant difference in it’s width and height. It should have movement or direction, a static shape is not as exciting a one that moves through the picture space. Good shape should have a variety of edges, hard, textured, and soft or blended. It should have a exciting silhouette, exaggerate the position of elements to improve the edge.

Remember the edge of the shape is what defines it, not the interior, so put a lot of interest and defining information at the edge. It is good to try to get some gradation across the shape for instance from warm to cool or intense to less intense, or one hue to another hue. A good shape should tie into the background or foreground at several points, try to invent a rock, a fence, or a figure to help attach the major shape into the adjacent shapes. Lastly and of utmost importance this wonderful shape must not have major value jumps across it. You can have some slight changes in value, but you can’t jump from light to dark to light to dark or the shape will fall apart into value pieces. You can make many color changes and they will not tear up the shape but big value changes will destroy the continuity of the shape.

(“Plains Virginia”, Shacks, 15 x 22 watercolor on paper) The dark shape is a very dynamic one it has a nice variety of edge and definitely moves across the paper.

To begin a painting with a focus on the big shapes it is best to start with a value pattern in your sketch book. Look at the subject matter and mentally organize the different pieces of what you are looking at. Think about which small shapes could be moved around or joined to other shapes. The goal is to connect minor pieces together as one big interlocked shape. At this stage don’t concern yourself about which shapes are lighter or darker in value because you will change their value for the purposes of the painting. Also mentally try to eliminate the shapes which are not going to help in creating good big shapes. Remember this is going to be your painting and you are under no edict from the painting gods to paint everything you see in front of you. Only use what you need.

Once you have thought about what to make your big shapes roughly sketch them onto the page in your sketch book. Analyze and adjust the shapes to follow the rules of a good shape. Remember to incorporate the unique features of the subject matter to enliven the silhouette. Make sure the shapes have an interesting relationship to the other shapes in the painting. Always work from the largest shapes to the smallest shapes and leave out all consideration for the details of the shapes until all of the shapes are well established on the page. Try to have all of the major shapes be a different size, make sure exterior angles are not the same and make sure shapes do not enter and leave the paper at a similar place on the opposite side of the paper.

Assign each shape a value and try to keep your lightest value shapes next to your darkest value shapes this will create the strongest focus and contrast. It is always a good idea to put your center of interest where the strongest value change is located. Once you have the design finished sketch it on the watercolor paper and paint it remembering to follow the value organization. Put some change of color, texture or value in each shape and watch that the edges have variety. Keep the painting simple. When your are done try reversing and rearranging the values of the major shapes and changing the color chords. This will result in some exciting variations on a simple theme.

(“Avon North Carolina” 18 x 24 Watercolor) The shapes are the light and I have played with them to create a nice passage through the painting. Keep thinking movement and attaching objects by using similar values. You will get this abstract shape idea.

(“Avon North Carolina” 18 x 24 watercolor on Paper) This is the same subject as the painting above I just took a lot of liberties with the shapes and colors, but I really have thought of good shapes and movement. Art is about invention and interpretation so loosen up on those shapes and have a good time. Allow yourself to make a few clunkers to get to the gems.

Exercises

• Take a subject with a strong shadow pattern and just paint the shadow areas. Play this pattern against a light middle value
• Take a black and white newspaper photo and with a small view finder, a 35mm slide holder is perfect, pick a interesting dark shape and use for the shape in your painting.
• Extract the key elements from the photo and make one large shape against a light midtone background