Day 17: #30x30DirectWatercolor: Graphic Novel
15×15″ Graphite Grey + Spot Color + Photoshop Adjustment
So, I fell behind yesterday! Sorry! I don’t really have an excuse; which is of course causing a little anxiety. But hey – this is the reality of the challenge. Getting stalled in the middle is quite a common situation.
If we’re not in the habit of painting every day we can run out of inspiration – because we don’t have a backlog of ideas raring to go.
I don’t have an over-arching project this year. (You can probably tell from my somewhat random output). In previous years I’ve created a larger project. In an ideal world I’d have prepared sketches in advance, or at least lined up thirty days of reference material.
But, for whatever reason, I stand before you unprepared this year! Hah!
But I guess there’s nothing wrong with that. A painting a day is a painting a day. No matter how you manage to do it.
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I had a photo today – a street scene from a recent trip to Quebec City. But – – the more I looked at it, the less exciting it seemed.
So I made something up.
What is this little story? Is it a scene from a graphic novel?
I don’t know!
What do you think :) What is going on with this girl and her Dalmatians :)
I’d really like to know!
Day 15: #30x30DirectWatercolor: Peony Apocalypse
Day Fifteen! Halfway there!!
I have to admit I’m getting tired – so just a quick one today. Another study of a Peony. This time I’m concentrating on volume, and also, trying to understand how to make the flower look luminous.
Key learnings: Flowers are translucent! They can’t be painted in the same full range of values you’d use for a solid object. Translucent flower shapes need to have high key shadows. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, but I’m a very dense sometimes, and the simplest things blow my mind.
Just try this: Keep everything in side the flower petals above the middle value, and everything in the background below the middle.
Ta-da! Your flower looks luminous. It’s so simple really, I don’t know why it should seem interesting to me, but there you go :)
~m
Day 15: Hey! We are crossing the halfway mark!
How are you all doing? Is everyone keeping up – got your 15? If not, tomorrow might be a good day to do some tiny studies to catch up.
I think I have 22 or 27/30 – depending on how you count fails.
If you’re taking ‘failed’ paintings to completion, in order to learn from them, then the bad painting still has to count for something. Otherwise you’re going to burn out. You put in the time! You should get to the reward.
On the other hand, I think one should learn to spot fails as fast as possible – that way you have more energy left to try again. Today I had three quick fails, where I bailed immediately. So I’m not going to count them. I just flip the paper over and try again. If the first few shapes are wrong, (The roof line in this case) the whole perspective will be off in the end.
Watercolor has no mercy! (Good thing I’m using student paper for today’s sketch :) I knew it would be tricky to get what I want.
In the end I had to stop and do an under-drawing.
This kind of complex architectural subject (even when I’m being intentionally weird with it) seems to require a drawing. So, most of my video today is talking about that.
I think my final answer is, I’m going to stop debating if using line in a “Direct Watercolor” is good or bad. Just like the topic of gouache. It’s getting to be pedantic to bring it up. (IMO). I feel we should only judge the final product, not how it was made.
And then – doubly so – we shouldn’t even judge these at all!!! That’s missing the point of #30×30; which is just to make things every day, and let the process carry you along. The learning is automatic, and unavoidable, if you simply show up for play everyday :)
(I’m talking to myself here, nobody is being a rules-lawyer. it’s just me thinking about it all the time :)
Ok! Have fun, and I hope you’re keeping up at the mid point here! 15/30!!
It’s day 13 of the #30x30DirectWatercolor Marthon!
Check out the video for a reveal of my five (5!) failed attempts, while I remember the fact that I’m looking for graphic edges :)
It’s come to my attention that some people who get this post by email preview, don’t see the video link. If that’s the case, just pop over to citizensketcher.com in a browser (safari, etc).
Thanks!
~m
Today was the watershed moment!
Every year it takes me a few rounds to get back into the Direct part of Direct Watercolor. Today I sat down to paint, and it just came naturally. I was painting all-in with absolutely no planning or pre-sketching.
Imagine what it might be like if I could paint every day, all year round! I wonder if I should try it for a year? Or how close a person could get to a goal like that :)
Ok then! Enough chit-chat ;) enjoy the little video, and here’s a collection of two and a half days of 30×30 work from the Botanical Garden.
I am painting for #30×30 today!!! But I’m working on a set I post all together, so; here’s a flashback to our trip to the beleaguered town of Baie Saint Paul.
For the second year in a row we joined a group of plein air painters up in the Charlevoix region.
Last year I brought oils, which you can see here; but this year I had #30×30 on my mind, so I brought the watercolors. This was my first serious painting session (other than a few life classes) since last year’s #30×30 marathon.
Every year I feel like – I wonder if I can still paint in watercolor? I suspect that feeling will never go away – even though we don’t say, Do I still know how to ride a bike?
Click the grid for a gallery view!
It was unseasonably warm, which was lovely for painting, but certainly felt strange. I had multiple parka’s and my -30c arctic boots in the car, but this year they didn’t even come out of the trunk.
I was happy for the opportunity, but it felt foreboding. There were a more than a few dinners where we toasted climate change :/
A few days after we left, the area was hit with devastating floods. Two volunteer firefighters lost their lives in a rescue operation. The highway was swept away, meaning the auberge where we stayed would have been cut off from town. You’d have to drive half an hour to the next town up-river, or take the range roads around a big circle.
Of course, there hasn’t been any follow-up in the news, so I’m not sure the situation now. But many people will have walk-away level damage to their homes, some of these being generational farm houses that are built on low lying land.
Sorry for that dour note. But, maybe you’ll be inspired to come visit rural Quebec and enjoy the food and hospitality! They will appreciate the visitors in the coming years.
Day Ten! #30x30DirectWatercolor: Teaser!
For day nine of the marathon, let me show you a sketch I actually did a few days previously.
It was Urban Sketchers Montreal’s monthly meetup, and they’d chosen the Atwater metro as the launching point. This gave us a chance to head to a really neat spot.
Le Manoir Souvenir is a 200 year old house, still standing in an alley off of Rue du Souvenir, which is very easy to find by walking south from the Atwater metro at Cabot Square. Or, you can do what we did and scoot down a pathway that goes behind the Maison Joseph-Wilfrid Antoine-Raymond Masson House. (Say that three times fast!)
Check your google maps for all this – there are map pins for these historic houses. They look like little Rooks. (The castle from a chess set, not the crow type bird :)
Héritage Montréal has this to say about the house:
The house was built in 1830 for Frédéric-Auguste Quesnel, a Canadian lawyer, businessman and politician who represented the riding of Chambly in the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada from 1820 to 1834 and who served on the Executive Council of Lower Canada from 1837 to 1841.
Originally built on 240 acres of land, it is one of the first houses in this area, still little affected by the acceleration of urban development during the 19th century.
One of my favorite sketching spots in Montreal is the Caserne Centrale de Pompiers – the old Firefighters Barracks. A quaint little turn-of-the-century structure, featuring three tiny garage doors meant for horse and carriage fire engines.
The old barracks has been converted to a civic history museum, but sadly, it is NOT the place to see old fire engines. I went there one time, at least ten years ago. It’s the kind of pioneer museum that features artifacts of daily life; so plenty of old sewing machines and shoes, plus some of the old English statues that have no where else to go :)
Don’t be confused with the much more interesting Pointe-à -Callière Museum, which is at the opposite end of Place d’Youville. That one is the the Archeology museum, which puts on touring shows (this year was Vikings and Ancient Egypt), and a permanent interactive ‘excavation’ in the basement, showing the fortifications which eventually became the city of Montreal.
The square itself, (Place d’Youville square, as opposed to the shady lane with the same name), has been recently renovated; adding plenty of shade and seating, and some shipping container sheds, which the city uses for cultural events. They’re in most of our parks now, and contain everything from miniature public gyms to tiny art galleries. This is one of the ways emerging artists can get exhibitions in Montreal! As long as you’re under 30 and still ‘struggling’ – not over 50 and as unfortunately ‘undiscovered’! hah!
I have to admit I didn’t go look at any of this :) I’m just here for the sketching! :)
Here are some feel-good doodles instead :)
I bet if you go back into previous years, this is a very normal arc for the marathon. I noodle around with sketches, try something that I’m really not good at :) And then hopefully begin to get back into old reflexes! Here’s today, for the sake of Daily Posting, and we’ll just move on shall we :) :) :)
Citizen Sketcher 