Watercolor - Lesson 2- Using two pigments

Oranges and A Lemon

This week our lesson was about using 2 pigments - Aureolin and Alizeron Crimson with a touch of blue to make the shadows show themselves off.

The original still life was set up before us in the classroom and later we received a photo to help work with out subject over the week. I made a gray tone jpeg of the work to further help see where the shadows fell and where the highlights were to be. Working with values is very helpful and certainly makes the work much more interesting and 3 dimensional. It was now time to begin my first fruit still life.

I started out with a light yellow wash over my fruit and then moved on to the lemon. I felt that my washes were consistent and were partially successful, the fruit were marginal but appeared to be round and the shadows appeared to be coming from the right point but I over worked this piece. It appears that in the course of doing so, I am learning how to apply color, blend and certainly how to make mud so far; however, I do feel that I am progressing.

I continued to work from fruit to background and back and forth until I have become somewhat satisfied with the piece. I need to work harder or smarter to have my skin of my paper remain fresh and for the colors to remain transparent. Scrubbing out and relaying paint, may work for an exercise, but the fluidity of the hand and the intention of knowing where you are going is the same in all art forms. It keeps the piece alive, interesting and inviting. I will continue to work towards this process.

Here is the photo from which I was to work.