No studio time this weekend so instead an excerpt from Day 12 of my journey through Tony Smibert’s Lessons from the Great Masters last July for Worldwatercolormonth Day 17 today.
Art
the right road
This week’s Discover Challenge from WordPress “brings out the positive: tell us about a piece of advice you’ve received — and would like to share with others.”
Tony suggests making small loose drawings and washes as notes, and not to worry about the consequences. Some are very abstract but some became quite specific and more detailed as they developed, as you can see. Each was intended to convey the sense of a fork in the road with a choice of direction between the light and the dark.
The Right Road 14.7.16
When I was a young boy my beloved grandfather said to me:
” In life Andrew there are always two roads, the right road and the wrong road.
Make sure you always choose the right one.”
His advice has stayed with me all of my life and echoed in my mind over the years whenever an important decision has needed to be made or a life-changing direction to be followed. It has been the best advice a young boy could have ever have hoped.
To complement this week’s Discover Challenge, and particularly as this month I am working through Tony Smibert’s Painting Landscapes from your Imagination, and also painting as part of Worldwatercolormonth, I thought I would continue the exercises of Chapter 8 in the book with imagined images that reflect the spirit of my grandfather’s advice to me.
Tony suggests making small loose drawings and washes as notes, and not to worry about the consequences. Some are very abstract but some became quite specific and more detailed as they developed, as you can see. Each was intended to convey the sense of a fork in the road with a choice of direction between the light and the dark.
This last image is perhaps the darkest of all and reflects what might have been.
Dedicated to the memory of my wonderful grandpa from his grandson,
now a besotted grandpa himself.
down to the seas again
“I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by…”
from Sea Fever by John Masefield 1913
A revisit to this day last year on Day 9 of my journey through
Tony Smibert’s Lessons from the Great Masters,
another inspiring book of his.
“practice, practice, practice”
“You can learn from teachers, fellow painters, books, videos, seminars and so on. But you won’t really understand the medium until you can use it. Hence, the key to understanding is
practice, practice, practice.”
Tony Smibert, from Chapter 1: Painting Landscapes from your Imagination
Taking this advice to heart today was just that, as I finished Chapter 8
with more of Tony’s exercises in composition, color and confidence.
empowered by freedom
Today I’m back on my journey through Tony Smibert’s
Painting Landscapes from your Imagination, my project for July.
Chapter 8: Color Confidence.
“The decision making processes for a painting should remain with the artist,” writes Tony. “When you can rely on experience and intuition to guide you, you set yourself free to experiment. And the truly creative person is empowered by freedom. Your color choices are your own.”
Definitely feeling empowered by freedom today, and what a good feeling it is too 🙂
return to the dunes
A section of the sand dunes posted this day last year on Studio 365: Day 191
for Worldwatercolormonth Day 10
a summer bouquet
I couldn’t resist painting this summer bouquet of
lavender, margaretas, cosmos and photinia
picked from the garden today.
the crying poppy
A watercolour painted this morning listening to the news from
Dallas, Minnesota and Baton Rouge.
In remembrance.
evolved from nothing
Chapter 7 in Tony Smibert’s Painting Landscapes from your Imagination is all about composition.
“Whether drawn as a crisp outline or sketchy…the result is the same:
a landscape which you evolved from nothing; and only a beginning to the possibilities”
This was certainly the case today particularly using the “Three Line Sketch”, which Tony describes as his “secret weapon…the ultimate planning tool for watercolour.”
there are no rules
In Chapter 2 of Painting Landscapes from your Imagination Tony Smibert describes the Nature of Watercolor:
“The essence of painting in watercolour is to understand and work with the simple mysteries
of suspension, settling and drying, which takes place everytime we lay down a wash.”
He then adds perhaps the perfect mantra for watercolour painting:
“There are no rules in watercolour, only consequences”
Today’s exercises, which are full of “consequences”, some more successful than others, finishes Chapter 6 with more washes, dots, dabs and the addition of knife work to remove the dried paint creating white highlights from the underlying paper.
Worldwatercolormonth Day 6
