With your host John
or
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Join popular artist Randy Hale for this full length, 2-3hr workshop webinar to capture a bottle of Bordeaux and a wine glass ** Details below ** Broadcast live from Colorado on 7 March 2023.
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**Recommended materials below**
SUMMARY
Randy's painting began with a bottle of Bordeaux and a wine glass – always essential tools of the painter! But these were not adequate in quantity for a proper still life, so he added a hint of a base upon which to plant the subjects, an apple (sphere) and a wedge of blue cheese – all diverse in shape and proportion.
Watercolour requires a lot of water to be expressive. Water is what moves pigments across the paper’s surface. To create a still life painting of recognisable objects without becoming stiff requires two things – good draftsmanship for the underlying drawing, and a willingness to let go of a need to be absolutely in control.
We must let pigments mingle and mix on the paper, let water create interesting reactions once it flows unencumbered into darker drier deposits of pigment. It can be breathtakingly fun, but also provide a wild ride for the painter!
In the past Randy has done wonky bottles, goblets, and fruit as abstract interpretations but for this still life he preferred a more classic old world look – while also preserving the free-flowing characteristics of watercolour. Light always plays an important role in defining shape. Softened and lost edges enhance the perception of reality. With watercolour, negative shapes play critical roles in providing importance. But the end goal is to produce a painting full of life and light, while retaining equal measures of mystery!
Example painting
Sketch
Workshop painting
Recommended materials
• PAPER: Arches hot press or cold press, Saunders, or Fabriano (cold press) or equal.
Randy prefers working on 300# as it can handle a lot of water without buckling. If you use 140# do not tape it down all way around – just a small piece of tape or clips in two upper corners, maybe a clip or small piece of tape at bottom that can be pulled to allow paper to continue expanding naturally when fully wet or soaked. As it dries it will return to flat But if taped down on all edges it will be trapped, unable to expand when it gets wet and will create extreme buckled hills & valleys (all your paint will run into the valleys). Paper needs to lay flat on your board so pigments can flow unencumbered across surface.
• PAINTS:
COOLS – Lavendar, Cerulean Blue, Cobalt Blue, Ulramarine, Cobalt Turquoise Light, Winsor (phtalo) Blue, Paynes Grey
WARMS – Jaune Brilliant #1, Yellow Ochre, Raw Umber, Transparent Orange, Alizarin,
Perylene Maroon, Bright Violet
• BRUSHES: Flats (1.5”, 1”, & 3/4"), a Medium Round Brush, a rigger or fine calligraphy brush
• OTHER: Lightweight board on which to mount wc paper (slightly larger than actual paper), masking tape, soft pencil, kneaded eraser, tissue, magic eraser, hair dryer or heat gun
The mingling and mixing of colors is what I most loved in this class. A great still life painting from a wonderful tutor.
Stephanie Moses - not finished and I paint dark. Happy so far. Great session. Paining Freely is a lesson I will aways need