BROAD STROKES ARE SO EFFICIENT!

In this Day 2 practice sheet we try to "loosen up" in handling brush and water, work more quickly, not worry so much about what is happening, and let strokes and color do their thing.

  The 12"X18" drawing paper is equally divided into 4 sections. We work in the order numbered as in Day 1. Today's practices are about painting (1) water and (2) ground. We will also use the LAYERING technique allowing each application to dry before the applying the next. (Working in different places on the paper really helps this!)

  For each of the practices to follow, students used "wells" to mix up 3-4 values of each hue for each layer to be painted. No "1-color-out-of-the-box" shrinking violets here!

  The left first stage prepares a WAX RESIST with white crayon lines, long to short from the top to bottom middle area. With the light values to be applied, this won't be noticed yet.

Values are applied using a fully loaded brush in horizontal strokes across the area. There's light values of green, yell-green, blue-green and gray. The right second LAYER applies medium values of the same hues using a darker blue/green/black rather than gray. Strokes are applied loosely, allowing the blends to naturally happen. Avoid changing the brush marks as applied. Over painting often spoils the nice interactions that normally happen. See the white crayon now?

  Area 2 will be "choppy" water. To start this illusion we use short, curved BROAD STROKES, with 3 very light green, yellow/green and green/gray mixtures.

  Following the diagram, we paint this in the bottom right corner allowing the previous area to dry. To make first stages of a layer even lighter, clean water strokes can be blended into the area along with the other values. That was done in this example.

The second right was more fun. Notice how "unbrush-like" the strokes appear. They seem to be short floating fish! (Come on, use some imagination.) Hues are darker, but the lighter, first layer can be seen. That's the joy and intrigue of watercolor transparency!

  Now for some ground! Getting new students to overcome plain green ground was enforced by beginning with a light gray, followed by green/yellow/light brown mixtures as in the left example.

The right second layer again applied darker values of the first, with a bit more brown in the mixes. Strokes are long but broken in moving across the area. Notice how nicely the first layer peeks through. The final layer adds a new way to use the brush! See below.

PRACTICE 2 IS FINISHED!

  First, getting though all this in one hour is quite a hassle, but so worth it! Getting to the final stage for each practice is always anticipated, and the different results were very apparent.

  Each last layer incorporated much darker blends, and our rule for each value was "always mix with another hue". The wax resist, left top, showed more clearly in the horizontal water, with the darkest values applied. Darker blue mixes made the right choppy water really rock.

  The right bottom corner ground changed most of all. First, the darkest blends were applied and allowed to dry a little. Then, a dark brown/green/black was painted in horizontal lines "here and there". Immediately, the brush was turned handle side down, and upward strokes were SCRAPED into the line. This pulled up grass-like shapes. A squeezed and flattened brush, with hairs separated, added multiple DRY BRUSH grass strokes for fill-in. We also add one item to the ground-- rocks, twigs, water, bugs, etc.

  Did we forget something? Nope! The last area, section 4 was left open. This was to provide a "water space" for students to explore on their own. This one shows a choppy wax resist. What would you do?