This project focused on tonal studies – learning to use the entire span from very light to very dark tones. There was also a shift from small and simple still life arrangements to the more complex topic of interior views.

Exercise: Composition of an interior

The task was to paint an interior view with a single dark colour. The composition was to entail a large area of mid tones, plus elements in very light tones and very dark tones.

I decided on a view towards the window, in the room that opens to the balcony. I began with a pencil drawing right on the watercolour paper. Instead of a quick sketch, I got carried away and made a detailed drawing, which took me two or three hours to complete… I had doubts whether I’d be able to build a generous watercolour painting on this groundwork, but I’m quite satisfied with the later results. There are too many details but the painting is less overworked than previous still life studies, despite using layers.

Composition of an interior, 34x48cm

My main difficulty was that the light situation constantly changed over the day. It had been cloudy while I was drawing. I began painting at around half past 2 in the afternoon and since it is winter I knew that I had at most two hours left if I wanted to use daylight. The beginnings were quite ok but when I came to the darker tones, it had become so dark in the room that the contrasts were entirely different from those when I started. So I painted some darker areas out of memory and then left the painting as it was.

Problematic areas are the heap of things on top of the bookcase to the right – I couldn’t remember how this looked like and improvised but not very successfully. There are some errors in the shapes of the cat scratch tree in the middle area but I realized this only when I already had painted the main shapes so couldn’t correct anymore.

The windows were quite complicated and I would have liked to have more time to analyse the gradation of tones, but I became stressed by the vanishing daylight so they are a bit hastily made. I quite like how I painted the plant to the left, and also the sofa with its cushions and the light areas on its top. I also like how I captured the afternoon sunlight that shone into the room. I think this is achieved through the very light tones for the sitting areas in the cat tree and for the sofa, plus the light and shadow on the floor. I also like that my cat Micky is depicted. It was a nice occasion because he took a nap on the sofa while I was drawing the outline sketch. Later he went away so the colouring is from memory.

With this study, I used a separate paper sheet to try out the brush load before painting, I found this quite helpful, although I made less use of it than I thought I would. Before beginning to paint, I made a photograph of the view because I anticipated that the painting would take me longer than just the two hours I had with daylight. It might be an option for future paintings to continue from the photograph as an aide-memoire for tonal values. But I did not use the photo here and I think this results in a slightly inconsistent tonal distribution because shadows became more and more intense as the afternoon passed.

Guided reflections

How did you respond to the challenge of scaling up from still life to an interior?

Actually I had made this transition already in the exercise on drawing and painting because I chose an interior view as my first subject. I do remember how difficult I found this, because the elements of the composition are much larger and need to be scaled down to fit the paper area. The effect of space is also quite different – it is not about centimeters between relatively small objects, but the area can span easily several meters. I anticipate the difference implied in depicting landscapes!

How did you cope with selecting important features? Did you have difficulty filtering out detail?

I did a very detailed drawing to prepare the painting, but focused entirely on line, not on tonal areas. I tried to maintain the same level of detail over the entire view. But even with the many details I included, there was a significant degree of selection. Overall I’m quite satisfied with the level of detail included in the painting, the problem was more that the areas were incorrectly worked out due to my stress with vanishing daylight.

Has your ability to ‚read‘ and interpret tonal values improved with practice?

Yes I think so. Especially the restriction to a single colour permits to focus on tonal values and I found this quite helpful.

Has this exercise developed your sense of the importance of tone in composition?

I wasn’t aware of it but nevertheless I’d answer with yes, because I was surprised by the effect of incoming sunlight I achieved through the light areas. I also realize that the very dark areas are important to give depth to the composition

Exercise: Dramatic Interiors

Dramatic interior 1 (from light into dark),
40 x 30cm

Dramatic interior 2 (from dark into light),
40 x 30cm

Dramatic interior 1: From light into dark (left)

The task was to paint a monochrome interior view from one room into another, where the two connected rooms should have contrasting lighting. I chose the view from the kitchen into the hall. The kitchen was light, while I dimmed the lighting in the hall.

I chose an A3 sheet, smaller than for the previous interior because I intended to use a portrait format and felt that the larger sheet would appear too empty, as there was much less detail to include. I made an initial sketch focusing on line which I found successful. I noticed that I went into a slight three-point perspective, with the right outer contour of the kitchen door at an outward angle. First I thought I needed to correct this but then decided to keep it in the drawing to see how the impression would be in the final painting.

I chose prussian blue for this painting and began with a light wash over the entire sheet, then continued with a minimally darker wash to leave out the brightest areas which I had identified as the side front of the cabinet to the left, the lower left half of the doorframe, and the inner borders of the glass window in the kitchen door. I then gradually worked towards darker colours.

I tried to define the midtone which I found to be the lightest tone in the darker area. In the hall as the darker area I changed from the medium to a darker wash and tried to work out the shapes in increasingly darker tones. I found this quite difficult and think I overworked the wooden drawer cabinet in the hall. Its tonal value was so dark that I could hardly see any details and wasn’t able to isolate those elements which would have sufficed to give a rough indication of the object. Maybe I’ll have a look again tomorrow with a fresh eye. Maybe I should have painted it like the armchair, just dark shape without details.

Another less successful area is the gas heating box in the upper left, I think this element lacks contrast. Nevertheless, overall I am quite satisfied with the painting. I think it is a nice composition and I like the effect of light shining from the kichen into the hall. Micky had been sitting on the drawer cabinet while I was sketching, and I included him, but he later went away and I was left with insufficient memory about the tonal values of his shape. It would have been good to have a tonal pencil study or a photograph to aid with this problem, or maybe I should have left out the cat.

Dramatic interior 2: From dark into light (right)

I painted the second dramatic interior with switched lighting: The same view as the first, but this time the kitchen was dim while the hall was light. I made minor changes in perspective though, and I had the intention of reducing the amount of detail and using less layers than before.

With the results, I was quite satisfied. Contrasts could be stronger, but the light distribution is clearly different from the first image and one can see which room was darker. A bit problematic again was the drawer cabinet, I had difficulties to not overwork. And the cat scratching tree to its right isn’t painted well enough to be recognized. Problematic also the long dark bands representing the shadows between door and door frame, or between the white cabinet and the drawer.

Becoming better would mean to me getting the tones right with fewer layers and with a more generous approach, i.e. more water on the brush and covering larger areas at once. And maybe not bothering to paint linear details in watercolour, but use drawing instead. I think this painting would benefit if I’d draw in some lines! But I won’t because it’s not in the instructions. Maybe when I find the time to do some free, experimental work.

Third dramatic interior: From light to dark again

For this study, I chose a colour from a different set of watercolours, which I own for very long – Schmicke Artist Watercolours in pans. I bought them in my twenties because I wanted to learn watercolour painting, but actually used them only once or twice and abandoned the plan because I found the medium too complicated to handle. I really liked that I can now finally put them to use!

Third dramatic interior (from light to dark),
32 x 24 cm

I first made a colour sheet to try out these new colours. In their pans, the colours look so similar that I wouldn’t be able to distinguish between them. The colour sheet is thus really helpful as a future reference, at least if I don’t change the order of pans in the box… From these colours, I chose a dark green. The view was from the brightly lit living room into the dim backwards corridor. The composition includes the door plus the immediate surroundings, but this time I let the door half open which created interesting perspective lines.

I chose a smaller paper sheet to help me getting away from painting too many details. I wanted to focus on the main shapes and I think this was successful (more than in the earlier studies). For example, the doors have quite an intricate pattern of light and shade but I painted only the main highlights rather than all the tiny differently shaded shapes. I also needed less layers for the effect I wanted. Less successful is the wooden floor, the darker basket is overworked, and sometimes I forgot to wait until one layer was fully dry before painting the next which resulted in bleeding. Probably it would have been possible to work out stronger tonal contrasts, but I did not want to rework it because I liked the lightness and unfinished character of the painting. I think I’m going towards the right direction, but need more practice.

Fourth dramatic interior: From dark to light again

Again I intended to focus on reducing detail, increasing contrast and using less layers. I had difficulties finding another view which did not simply repeat what I had already done. I decided to cut the composition again, as in the first two, to not include the entire height of the doorframe, but this time I wanted to include the upper half. I sat on a highchair which helped getting the viewpoint right. I chose Payne’s gray from the Schmincke set, and from all four studies I like this interior best for the colour. The neutral tonal value works well with the focus of the task which is a tonal study, whereas I find that the other colours have something artificial to them if used on their own.

I painted from a dim hall into the well lit living room. I like the effect but there is a particular problem to this setting: The light was not enough for painting. With a dark colour, I tend to paint very subtle tonal differences, but once I look at the painting in lighter lamp light, many elements become indistinguishable because the contrasts were too weak.

This time I decided to rework some problematic areas, for example the white chair before the white wall. It was slightly lighter than the wall and so I toned down the wall to increase the contrast. I also toned down the doorframe and wall in the darker room. This improved the overall impression of the painting. From all four, I like this one best – I think this is because it is the one with the least detail and best contrasts.

Exercise: Imaginary rooms

A hall by day and night

For this task, I imagined a room with a large window, a cabinet, a round table and a lamp. The first study was a daylight scene, the second the same view at night. I chose a dark brown tone and a small sheet of paper in landscape orientation.

I found the task quite difficult, not so much because of the invention of room and furniture, but because of the effect of the light sources. I think it is easier to observe actual light effects than trying to develop them out of the rules of angles in perspective. But the exercise points to the necessity and usefulness of observational painting to achieve realistic depictions. Even from observation, tonal values are difficult to depict correctly.

Inside a wooden hut

Third imagined interior: Inside a wooden hut, 32 x 24 cm

For another imagined interior, I had the initial idea of a garden house with a view into greenery, but that would have been quite a departure from the task to draw an interior view, if I focused on what happened outside the room. So I modified the idea and imagined the inside of a small wooden hut, looking at a window with an ancient simple chair and a carpet on the floor.

I found the painting difficult because I wasn’t able to draw on precise memory how the light falling into the room would behave. I was quite sure that the window frame would be very dark. I stopped painting quite early because I liked the image and was afraid to spoil it with unrealistically dark accents.

Guided reflections on observed and imaginary interiors

Which studies worked the best and why?

Generally, I’d say the observed studies worked better than the imagined rooms, because the visual information is denser – there are more details of the scene which contribute to the realistic effect. Particularly the first imagined room suffers from too small objects in an apparently huge, empty room. The second imaginary interior in the wooden hut works better, as window, stool and carpet are less lost in space.

With respect to colour, I think the first interior (balcony room, brown) and the fourth interior (dramatic view from hall into living room, Payne’s gray) work best. These are the studies where I feel the least discomfort with the restriction to a single colour. But I’m not sure about this, it may be that these are just the ones where the tonal values are the most rich, and they appear most neutral only in direct comparison to the other chosen colours (dark blue, dark green, pale brown).

If I had to choose one single painting for an exhibition, I would choose the fourth dramatic interior – view from dark hall into light living room, with the grand piano and the large painting in the background. It combines many successful elements: The tonal values are from very light to very dark, it is not overworked with an acceptable degree of irregularity in the tonal areas, and there’s enough detail but not too many objects. This results in something like focusing on the essential. The second most interesting study would be the view towards the balcony in brown. I like its livelyness and the effects of sunlight shining from outside inside the room.

How did the observed studies affect your ability to produce imagined rooms?

The observed studies helped to get a feeling for the degree of contrast resulting from different light situations. Generally, I think they sharpen observational capabilities which helps to build up a memory of „how things look like“, which can then be used as a resource when painting from imagination. But I also realized that I worked rather analytically in the imagined interiors to deduct where the areas of light  would be, based on some theoretical knowledge about perspective and geometry. This may have been a consequence of not having much recent experience with observational painting.

What potential is there for watercolour to convey mood and atmosphere?

I think there is a huge potential. I’m just having the problem of being emotionally too close to my studies to identify what kind of atmosphere they may convey to others. To me, the observational studies are very friendly and capture how much I like the place where I live.
The imagined studies are somewhat different. They convey a feeling of spaciousness which is something I really miss at home. I don’t know in how far this is a consequence of me following task instructions to include only one or two furniture objects. In this respect, the third imaginary study is interesting because it includes only few objects but these are much better able to occupy the image space. The painting is neither too empty nor overloaded with detail as the first observed interior (balcony room).

I think the great potential for conveying mood and atmoshpere has something to do with the chance effects that are inherent in the medium. The irregularities of brush strokes and pigment distribution in the fluid create interesting variations even in plain coloured areas. For the future, I would like to learn how to let more freedom to the medium and make good use of chance effects, instead of trying to control the medium by overpainting in too many layers.

Did you feel constrained by using monochrome?

No, it was actually a relief at this stage of learning for me, because I found it much easier to explore and use the range of tonal values of a single colour than those from multiple colours simultaneously in a single painting. It was only from the resulting painting that I wish I’d be able to extend the palette to include more colours. I do like monochrome paintings but including more colours will help to achieve a more natural, realistic visual effect.

This project focused on tonal analysis. The exercises were quite technical but I enjoyed them a lot because there was still so much space to realize my own ideas, and I felt more and more comfortable with the medium.

Exercise: From light to dark the watercolour way

The task was to practice building up intense tones of a dark colour by painting layers into a grid of 10 small squares. I did this with the five colours of my new artist quality watercolours because I thought it would help me getting to know the colours better. My selection consists of Winsor Yellow, Winsor Red, Burnt Sienna (a warm, medium brown tone), French Ultramarine, Hooker’s Green and Payne’s gray. I made one grid for each of these colours, except yellow.

It was quite difficult to anticipate the right amount of colour mix I would need, and to mix the colours in an appropriate intensity – not too weak and not too concentrated. I guess this needs a bit more practice. I was surprised by the brown tone which is much lighter than I thought when I selected this colour for my palette. I think I would like to add a darker brown tone. But maybe this will not be necessary if I learn how to obtain darker tones through mixing.

By contrast, the green tone was quite intense. I had noticed this in the studies I made for the previous exercise, and this task confirmed the observation that this is a rather dark green. I could have done a lighter mix, this would probably have resulted in a smoother gradation from light to dark. I liked the exercise, it’s interesting to see how the colour intensity gradually builds up.

Exercise: Tones from a single layer

The task: Arrange max. 5 simple objects and do a tonal study with pencil in the sketchbook, indicating different tonal values with numbers if you like. Then sketch the outlines on A3 or A4 watercolour paper and paint a monochrome study with pre-mixed colours of different tonal values.

I chose some white pottery objects because I found the variation in white tones interesting. I placed them onto a dark flat table andI used a grey cardboard mat as a background. I enjoyed drawing the arrangement and taking the time to analyse tonal values, although I felt very unsure whether I had classified them correctly.

Then I proceeded to the painting. I began with what I thought was a very pale tone to indicate the lightest areas – the light reflexes on the objects. The darkest areas were the contour shades of the bowl and the salt and pepper dispensers. I painted the grey cardboard background with an intermediate tone. Then the remainder of the painting consists in attempts to vary between these tones, but this wasn’t very successful, I’m afraid.

Not sure whether the problem was the colour (Payne’s gray) or that I used a brush that was too large, but somehow I obtained almost no variation in tonal values, neither towards the dark nor towards the lighter tones. The tonal variation I obtained is more the result of irregular loads of colour on the brush, instead of different pre-mixed base tones. I think I will follow my tutor’s advice to repeat an exercise if I’m not satisfied. It’s really a learning process and I think I need practice to adapt the technique to the experiences I’m making.

Second attempt: more contrast

In the second study, I reduced the number of tonal areas and the number of tones. This time, I decided to leave the lightest areas as white and mixed a really dark tone for the darkest areas, then an intermediate gray for the mid tones. I achieved stronger contrasts in this painting and the different tones are better distinguishable.

I think the darkest and the second-darkest tone are too close together, the tone for the table became too dark. Another problem is to cover large areas with an even wash: I used a smaller brush this time because I had difficulties controlling the amount of water with the big brush in the first study. Now the problem was that the smaller brush did not hold enough colour to cover the larger areas of dark colour… The solution will be to use a brush adapted to the size of the area that I want to cover… funny how I seem to prefer using only a single brush rather than changing the brush while working on a single painting to accommodate the task at hand.

The second study represents an improvement, but I think I’ve overdone the contrasts a bit. The first one was pale but the subtlety also has a nice quality in it. Probably the best where is somewhere in between – not too much, but enough contrast. It’s quite tempting to do a third one and see whether I can do this. There’s not enough daylight anymore, I will have to do it with a lamp or wait until tomorrow.

Third attempt: somewhere in between

This will be the last try for now! I’m quite satisfied this time, contrasts are not so extreme but objects are recognizable. Brushwork still needs improvement and I’m far from really mastering tonal values at first attempt, but the tones are closer to what I intended to do than in the first two studies.
I think it would be a good idea for me to use a separate tryout sheet to test the colour that is on the brush, before applying it to the drawing. This would give me the opportunity to correct the tone, reduce water or whatever I think is necessary, rather than commiting everything directly.

Exercise: Tones in several layers

The task was to paint another monochrome study with the objects and in the same colour as in the previous exercise, but this time another positioning and/or viewpoint on the objects and building up colour intensity in layers, rather than mixing the right colour in advance.

I had some difficulties deciding on the arrangement, probably my good intentions for the last exercise led to a feeling of saturation with the objects… but finally I found an arrangement I liked. It was in a portrait format and I also changed my viewing position slightly. I took some time to work out a tonal study in pencil, probably invested more effort than task instructions would have demanded, but I was in the mood for fine analysis and preferred to work out the tones rather than just loosely indicating them.

This probably helped with the subsequent painting. I felt much more at ease with this technique than with the previous exercise. Being allowed to paint in layers is much more forgiving. The result is quite successful for the tonal values, I think. But there are two drawbacks of the method.

The first is that it did not permit to paint tonal gradations within an area and the demarcation lines I drew between tonal areas look artificial. The other is that the overall impression of the study is much more static, less vivid than the previous ones. I think this is because the colour areas become very uniform from multiple layering. There is less room for chance effects and the painting has lost a bit of the charme the earlier studies had.

It may have to do with me making too many layers. Maybe with more practice, less layers are required to obtain the desired tone and then the painting would retain its freshness.

This project is about combining watercolour painting with drawing. I hadn’t tried this out before and found the results quite interesting.

Exercise: Quick watercolour studies

Task:

• arrange a simple still life of fruit, vegetables, flowers or a selection of household objects with interesting forms and surfaces
• divide a large sheet of watercolour paper into areas of A5 size
• do at least 4 watercolour studies of the arrangement
• try to detect the broad tonal areas (light, dark and intermdiate tones)
• use brushes of your choice, work quickly
• variously focus on tone, line, surface texture
• don’t be disheartened if things appear to go wrong

Setting up the arrangement and first two studies

My arrangement
–    three onions and a dried corn cob in a braided basket, arranged on a natural white table cloth. Dark grey background from sofa. Perspective is looking from a somewhat elevated point to permit view inside the basket
–    light source from the right, using a lamp. The second light source is my table lamp which I need for painting. It is so close to the arrangement that it softens all the shadows.
–    colours are brown (the basket), dark red (a paper napkin), natural white with green shades (the corn cob), dark grey (sofa background and shades on the table cloth)

I did the first two studies today. I realized that my arrangement was too complicated to be drawn on such a small area (A5). The task is quite difficult and I felt indeed overwhelmed.
Most difficulties were related to getting the proportions of the objects at least approximately right. While it worked ok for the basket form, I did not get the corn cob and the onions right. I thought that a drawing to just sketch forms and positions of objects would greatly help for having some orientation on the paper. I did not dare drawing with paint because I thought the lines would disturb the painting, and I did not know which colour to choose that would be less disturbing.
Second difficulty was with the colours. I used artist quality watercolours from tubes and prepared them in a pallette, but I did not mix them in the tones I needed. I used the pure tones instead. I restricted the palette to four colours: yellow, red, brown and Paynes gray, excluding blue and green. I think the choice of colours works good, only my use of them lacks technical skill. I tried to obtain dark colours and shades by using layers of gray, but this did not work very well.
In the second painting, I did not use yellow and overall used less colours. I think the second study shows some progress because it is less overworked than the first and the colours are less muddy. The shapes are slightly improved too, although the onions are less well defined than in the first study.
For the next studies, I would like to improve the depiction of forms and proportions of objects in the basket. I thought that a pure tonal study would also be helpful, because it doesn’t lead to muddy colours when layers of colours are applied.
What would also help would be to do detail studies of just single objects enlarged. I think my arrangement is too complicated to be painted as small as A5, at least for a beginner. The solution will be to simplify, but that’s difficult to learn.

Four more studies

I made four more studies to complete the reserved spaces on the sheet. I think there are slight improvements from one to the next, in that I gained a bit of confidence with the medium. But I also felt that I kept repeating my errors, rather than improving. For example, I always tried to paint the texture of the basket, but it did not work. Or the darkest shades – they never looked like shades, but instead they were just dark spots that did not integrate into the whole.
But from the first to the last study, I think there is an improvement in coherence of some of the objects. For example, in the first study I think the red paper napkin falls apartwile in subsequent paintings, it becomes more recognizable.

Overall, the most important instruction seems to have been not to be disheartened if things don’t work out as expected. At least I’m ready for approaching the task with preparatory studies now, rather than wanting to just have a go!

Guided reflection

Were you focussing more on colour, tone or line? If you were attempting all at once, was this problematic, if so how?

I was consciously focusing on form, I tried to get the shapes of the objects correctly. I also tried to get the colours approximately right and to include some tonal values. So probably I was more trying everything at once, rather than focusing on anything particular. It was indeed problematic, I think the task was too complex.

In this exercise to what extent were you drawing or painting?

This is a difficult question because I’m not even sure about the difference between drawing and painting. I did begin with a more linear outline of some of the shapes, and maybe my attempts at creating some texture for the corn and the braided basket. The stripe shadows of the table cloth are also more linear elements, so that may have been the drawing elements. I think I painted where I tried to cover larger areas in a single go, like the red napkin or the shadow of the basket on the table.

In which ways did you find working with watercolour effective or problematic in producing these sketches?

I found my use of watercolour mostly problematic, because it didn’t seem to work very well in producing an accurate representation of my arrangement. I preferred using a large brush but this resulted in an inability to draw the fine detail from which I wasn’t able to abstract. Blending of colours didn’t work because I wasn’t able to use the colours wet in wet, so there are hard edges rather than blendings and objects are hardly recognizable.

Assess each picture – which has worked well and why?

The first picture didn’t work at all because neither form nor colour nor tones work together to create coherent objects. The second study works somewhat better because colour contrasts are less extreme so the objects are more recognizable. The third study improves a bit on colour blending and I also had discovered that the corn cob was dark where it went outside of the basket, and light before the darker background of the red napkin inside the basket. The fourth study was a bit hasty, but what I like about it is that it is more spontaneous, less controlled than the earlier attempts.

In the fifth study, I had decided to use the colours in higher intensity, so this is a painting which has more contrast and deeper colours than the earlier ones. I think the basic shape of the corn cob works better here than in earlier studies. The dark tones inside the basket are less successful, but I like the texture on the front of the basket better than in earlier studies.

In the final study I tried to get the tones in the darker areas right, this concerned the left side of the basket before its dark shadow. The corn cob is less successful here and the onions aren’t very recognizable either, but I like the dry brush effect for the background behind the table.

What kind of preparation might have helped you to develop these studies more?

I think drawing would have been a good preparation, especially because I found the forms in the arrangement quite complex and I could have used the drawing to learn and explore how I might simplify shapes and textures. It might also have helped to explore the tonal values before attempting to represent them in colour.

Colour studies using only a single colour might also have helped, firstly to get practice in creating tonal values withut distraction from colour, but also to practice creating shapes and varying between linear elements and broader tonal areas.

Exercise: Pencil and Watercolour

The task was to make two simple drawings of the same arrangement, then paint one image very closely to the lines and exact, and the second paint quickly and loosely.

I enjoyed this exercise, because it felt like an approach to address the earlier problems rather than repeating something which did not work. The first drawing was very satisfying to do because I had really felt a need to sort out the forms of my arrangement and drawing helped to do this. The first drawing was very similar in perspective to the six studies of the previous exercise, maybe the way of looking had become a habit. In the second drawing, I took a different approach, beginning with a broader outline of shapes before getting to the more detailes elements. The effect was that the basket became larger on the space that was available, I think that was an improvement for the composition.

The first painting took quite a bit of time to complete because I painted several layers to obtain a more even colouring. The darker areas work much better than in the first exercise, they are better placed and more accurate in colour. I think the shapes have also improved.

The second painting was done much faster. I chose a larger brush this time because I realized that the one I had used before could not hold enough paint for the areas I wanted to cover in one go, which resulted in visible brush marks. The larger brush worked much better. I also used lighter colours, and this time I started with the darkest colour (Payne’s gray) rather than with the lightest (yellow). This was more an intuitive than a deliberate choice, but it seemed to have worked quite well. I also took more freedom for the objects’ colours, for example using the gray as a first layer for the corn cob’s outer leaves, then later adding yellow to obtain the sort of pale green. I also took the freedom to work more intuitively and spontaneously with the other colours and I really like the result. It feels like a step into the right direction: More transparency, a faster working style, and a looser overall impression. I forgot to colorize one area of shade below the left handle of the basket, will correct this later on.

Guided reflections

Did the drawings inhibit your painting or did the outline structure give you greater confidence?

I definitely felt much more confident with the pencil outline structure. I think the confidence was twofold: the process of drawing was a learning experience how objects related to each other. This gave some acquaintance with the arrangement which added to the visual help from the lines.

The first more precise method of fitting wash into pencil outlines can be very useful for some subjects. What did it help to bring out in your drawing?

It was especially helpful for the shapes of the corn leaves. I had analysed that there were shades which defined the forms but had not been able to paint these. With the pencil lines to guide me on the sheet, it finally worked. But the pencil outlines also helped with the overall forms of all objects.

Is the pencil concealed by your paint, or does it act as an accent to your painting?

The pencil lines are more concealed in the first painting because I used more saturated colours. They do shine through in the lighter areas. The second painting was much lighter and used transparency to a greater extent, and the pencil lines are much more visible here. The effect may also be stronger because the colours follow the pencil less exact than in the first, so they are not covered by the drying demarcation lines of watercolour areas

In the second, looser approach, how would you describe the role of the pencil lines?

The pencil lines are like an additional element here, standing out and helping to make the forms recognizable. The effect would certainly be stronger with darker marks, especially with pen and ink.

What are the advantages of the more careful method? What are the advantages of the quick method?

The more careful method permits a more precise definition of forms and colours. Working slowly also permits to work out fine details. By contrast, the quicker method feels much more spontaneous and fresh and gives a lightness to the painting which I appreciate.

Did the pencil drawing require a different kind of looking to the painting? If so what were the differences?

Yes I think the pencil drawing changed the way I analysed the arrangement. While I did the drawing, I tried to get together the loose ends of some lines and to define shapes which would be of a distinct colour. Then while painting, I realized that I could give some adjacent shapes the same colour and was much more confident that I would not loose orientation about the objects’ boundaries. I just waited and added the separating layer of colour later on.

Which of all the studies you’ve made so far has been the most successful?

I think the most successful one has been the last one, employing the loose approach. There are several elements which contribute: The pencil drawing which helped enormously to maintain orientation on the paper. It was also based on the second preparatory drawing which I found had improved the composition by getting a bit closer to the objects.

I had taken the freedom to draw the two studies of this exercise on slightly larger paper in A4 rather than approximately A5, which was much more pleasant to use for the arrangement I had chosen. I think this further improved the overall effect because the basket in the last study has about double the size of the first exercise where the elements look quite cluttered.

Another good element was the larger brush I chose for the final study which helped to fill larger areas much more evenly. It also led to overpainting in some areas but I really liked the effect of unexpected colour mixes which resulted from later layers on top. I think the quicker approach is more open to chance effects and this adds much interest to the painting, compared to the slower, more controlled approach.

Some free practice: Laying washes

My first attempts in part I of the course at laying washes weren’t very successful, so I had kept in mind that I need some more practice on this. I wouldn’t want to „waste“ expensive high quality watercolour paper for this, but would use colour left over from course exercises and some of the less expensive practice paper.
I had a go yesterday with colours left over from the two studies with pencil drawing, and did five washes: Two red, two Payne’s grey, and one yellow. The yellow was the last one and the most successful. I had discovered that it worked better when I added water into the colour on the pallette, rather than just taking up more water onto the brush to mix on the paper. And the yellow colour is more forgiving as well, because the pigment distribution creates less visible stripes on the paper.
I definitely need more practice, but these sheets may serve as simple backgrounds for other studies, so the paper is not wasted.

Exercise: Adding line to watercolour

First study: Interior view with vase of twigs

I made two preliminary studies of an interior view. It is in the living room, a white cabinet with a braided armchair and a vase of long twigs, a painting on the wall in the background. What I found interesting were the tonal values of the white cabinet before the white wall, which were not white at all but more or less shaded.

The first study includes more of the scene, it shows the entire cabinet and painting on the wall, while the second is a close up, cutting off the bottom and top of the cabinet and showing only a section of the painting. I prefer the colours of the second, but I think it’s more difficult to recognize. I also like the armchair’s shadow on the cabinet.

I thought this was a simple interior before I began but then realized that there’s quite a lot of detail. Especially difficult is the hole in the construction of the armchair through which a bit of background can be seen, in this scene it’s the rim of the vase and the black air cleaner box. But these details are not recognizable and I don’t know how to paint them without making them too important. I’d like to improve the depiction of the cushion on the armchair, make it more different from the background colour. I’d also like to have more three-dimensionality for the twigs. And probably less texture in the armchair.

Later I made another two studies of the subject. I wasn’t at all sure whether I should continue with this subject which I found too difficult, or choose a different one with which the task might work better. I decided to give it a try to get at least to the point of adding line, the central aspect of the task. I tried to work more loosely with the medium in these studies, faster and less controlled, and I think this did improve the overall painting. I like the third study best for the colours, but I think the composition of the fourth is better because it includes less detail. In the third study I added the two other armchairs in the background, in the fourth reduced to a single background chair and I think this works better.

In the third study, I tried out charcoal for the lines and was quite surprised by the improvement I saw. It felt like an immediate harmony between the painting and the lines, at the same time it added an interesting accent which let the forms come out much better.

For the fourth study, I chose pen and ink for the lines and played a bit with varying line thickness. The deep black of the ink represents a sharper contrast than the soft charcoal lines, and this creates a different overall effect. It changed the painting somewhat into a colorized drawing, where the third study remained more of a painting.

After adding the lines to study four, I reworked the painting a bit and added some shadows behind the twigs and the armchairs, and also added a layer to the floor area, which improved the overall impression. All in all, I think the four studies show a nice development in how I captured the subject. I would like to have another go for this exercise, but with a different subject. Maybe not an interior view but rather a simple still life. I also thought about the plant next to the living room window. Will decide next time that I can work on the topic.

A second topic to study: the plant

I made two more paintings and chose the plant at the window for my subject. I liked how the green watercolour almost naturally evolved into the leave shapes with lighter and darker tones. The first painting was on the white paper background and I just added some shadows behind the leaves.

For the second painting, I first laid a wash in light Payne’s gray and then painted the green leaves on top. The effect confirms what I felt earlier when experimenting with washes, the uniform background colour gives coherence to the picture. The wash itself was not very successful, rather stripey and irregular and I found this unvoluntary texturing disturbing, it did not support the picture of the plant. Maybe I’d better use a sponge to obtain a more even distribution of colour. The second study included the cabinet on which the plant stood, and I chose a portrait format instead of landscape as for the first. I think both aspects were improvements in the composition, although the overall painting is still quite empty.

There seems to be a process of gradually letting go, exerting less control and trying to be more spontaneous (a contradiction as such…). I don’t know whether it is visible in the paintings but I’m beginning to get a feel for what the medium does by itself when I am able to let go. I haven’t yet included line, I think I will do two more studies as with the first set, then add lines. It’s as if I need some time to warm up with the subject first before I dare adding lines.

Two more plant studies

For the third study, I changed perspective and included more of the background: The cabinet, the white window frame with dark glasses (because it was night), the sofa cushions in the foreground and the loose contours of the heating element. I think this is quite a successful painting because I began working with colour intensity. I was very cautious with adding line because the painting was already with many linear details and I did not want to overdo it.

So overall I was quite satisfied with the painting, but was aware that it did not quite meet what the task was about: doing a quick study and using line to integrate more structure. This is why I decided to have another go, trying to let go of detail and leave out all the background, focus on the plant. I had the idea of doing the greenery in a more bold approach and then use line to recreate the shapes of the leaves.

For the fourth study, I placed the plant on a flat table before the white wall and found that I might well try a light green wash as a basis. Following the actual lighting, I made the colour fade towards the upper left corner. I think the wash is a bit too pale to be visible, but I worked in the evening with lamp light and the impression may be different in daylight.

I had realized that the third study was not at all a fast sketchy study, so this time I wanted to try a more fluent approach and later use line to add structure. I began with a very yellow green tone and changed the colour to increasingly more intense and dark green. I had great difficulties with the leave shapes. Somehow I cannot focus on single stems or leaves and am very quickly confused and overwhelmed by the details. I made a quick pencil outline sketch on the wash ground which helped a bit, but overall I felt quite lost.

After the leaves, I added the blue and dark gray colouring of the pot. As a last step I added line using pen and ink. I had the intention of making the forms clearer but I think this wasn’t very successful. Considered as a task of accurate representation, there are many many errors and loose ends – a problem that keeps reappearing when I try to draw what I see.

I like the painting for the variety of greens and think that I made some progress in mixing colours. I also like that the subject is focused on what I found most relevant of the chosen topic. Areas to improve are that of visual analysis – either getting the object objectively correct, or be truely expressive and abandon trying to depict actual details in favour of a more generous approach.

Some reflections

I think it is a bit problematic that I paint in the evenings, because the lamp light changes the quality of colours. Maybe this is why I tend to have very broken and pale colours in my paintings – simply a reflection of the bad lightning conditions I have for working. One idea is to improve the lighting. Actually I have enough lamps, but maybe I have to assemble even more in the room where I paint. Another idea is to deliberately exaggerate colour intensity. Not sure whether I like this. I think I’d prefer to change habits and work more with daylight. Unfortunately this will only be possible on week-ends when I am free during daytime.

I also realized that I have taken up a suggestion by my tutor: She recommended doing several studies of a single subject and when the painting becomes overworked, then start a new one. This would give me the necessary practice to learn what is essential and what is superfluous. I have done this without being aware of it since the beginning of the project. When I look at the progression that is visible from one study to the next, I’m quite impressed. It’s not that I made huge progress, it is more a mental thing of becoming more attentive to what I’m doing and how the medium behaves.

My tutor also recommended that I’d have another go when I wasn’t satisfied with the result of an exercise. The latter is something I consciously took on board, although I’m aware of a problem with the time I can allocate to each exercise. It’s a bit unfortunate that the course contains so many worthwhile exercises which definitely merit several tries to become better at the task, but then the aim of completing one project per week on average becomes quite utopical. Officially I’m on a break anyway, so I thought I might use a more relaxed approach.

It’s really a relief not having any deadline for completion of a course part, instead just taking the time it needs to work through the tasks in a satisfying manner. Maybe I can negotiate this when I resume coursework officially in April – that I’d prefer to agree on a submission date when I reach the end of the last project in the course part. I have enough self-discipline to work without a fixed deadline and I think I will benefit from feeling less pressurized by some arbitrary finalization date. I’ll think about this and review the idea after some time of free working. After all, it is possible that I decide that I cannot afford the time to do this while working on the dissertation. But for the moment, this helps to keep me sane, so I will continue.

Guided reflection: Assessment of what I have found out about drawing into painting

I think I discovered that I employed two different approaches to watercolour painting: one was to paint everything quite detailed and use colour to separate areas from another. The other was to paint more loosely and use line to make the structure come out better. The latter approach supports a more spontaneous mode of working with watercolour, which I think is quite appropriate for the medium.

I was surprised how well adding lines supported the paintings. Adding line is really an interesting technique and I’m looking forward to exploring it further in part 3 of the course. Nevertheless I think that even the bold approach might benefit from preliminary pencil studies. I have the recurring problem of producing loose ends and undefined shapes and I think drawing would help me to sort out what I see. I did not make preparatory drawings because I wanted to follow instructions but I would like to integrate this into regular practice.