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Ria Sharon

pondering creativity, process, and making art

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Watercolor study: another portrait

October 20, 2020 by riasharon

I’m on a roll. This time I’m following this tutorial. I picked it because I want to learn how to incorporated a background into the composition. This one appealed to me in how the artist represented depth of field. Also, I still want to loosen up my rendering style. The last one I did, I felt was too loose.

I don’t like this approach in that we’re starting and finishing areas of the portrait all at once before doing the next area. It’s hard for me not to build up the whole thing to see where I need to make adjustments as I go. Even though it looks okay, the process is very uncomfortable for me.

watercolor portrait wip

Oct. 22

watercolor portait wip

Oct. 21

watercolor portrait study

Oct. 20

Filed Under: DIY art school, watercolor

Watercolor study: wrinkles

October 20, 2020 by riasharon

I followed this tutorial, although how to paint wrinkles aren’t what I got from it. I was looking for a way to loosen up my portrait rendering. I did this all in one day and forgot to take wip shot so here it is…

watercolor portrait

What I learned:

I like that it was looser but I don’t like that it’s “sketchier” — I want it to feel more substantial. It was a good exercise in that I’m much more comfortable doing portraits, not because it’s good as much as I know that if I mess up, I can just make another one. Maybe after 10 more of these, they will lose their preciousness.

Filed Under: DIY art school, watercolor

Watercolor study: giraffe

October 20, 2020 by riasharon

giraffe complete

Oct. 20: done!

giraffe watercolor

Oct 17

giraffe head

oct 10: giraffe head

initial wash of giraffe watercolor

sept 30: initial wash

giraffe drawing

sept. 28: ink drawing

giraffe reference photo

Louise de Masi’s reference photo

Starting another Louise de Masi class this week. Stepping it up one notch and used the reference photo to freehand sketch instead of tracing her line art. Not that it matters that much but there’s def some translation that happens there. I inked my sketch and now ready to trace this to my watercolor paper.

paper: Fluid 100% cotton, 140 lb.

giraffe ink drawing file PDF)

Filed Under: DIY art school, watercolor

Loosen up

October 14, 2020 by riasharon

Now, I really want to do something different with my portrait backgrounds but I feel like they should be looser and I don’t know how to do that yet. A little searching on YouTube led me to Enjoy Art’s tutorial. I tried my best to follow along.

watercolor street scene complete

watercolor street scene

Documenting this stage to remind me that everything looks like crap at one point

What I learned:

  • That you really can use just three primary colors and two brushes
  • I prefer drawing with pencil before painting
  • I can use the reference photo as a jumping off point
  • It doesn’t have to be so labored to feel dimensional and alive, in fact, it feels more alive this way.
  • I like seeing the strokes and blooms but I’m still uncertain about the more traditional watercolor “style.”
  • I do like the organic edge

Filed Under: DIY art school, watercolor

Watercolor portrait study: Juliana

October 11, 2020 by riasharon

I started a new painting this weekend, building on what I learned from the last one. This time, I won’t have a step-by-step guide. I had to make every choice myself and I can see what Carol Carter was talking about in terms of painting being tiring. Definitely requires mental focus. I’m trying to keep in mind Carol’s advice on not making it precious. That’s why I picked Juliana — the composition is similar enough to the old man that I could borrow some of the techniques from the tutorial but more importantly, I don’t have an emotional connection to her so I won’t feel any pressure to make it match any personal memories I have.

I’m going to post my progress in reverse chronological order here, as evidence  — for me to see all the awkward, terrible in progress phases where I want to throw it out. Regardless of how it goes, I’m committing to finishing it.

Some other things I’m exploring with this one:

  • I don’t want to scrub anything
  • I’m doing it like Louise de Masi does the giraffe — applying washes really far from the water’s edge. I like the smoothness I’m getting with this.
  • Dedicated brushes for 1) water application, 2) pigment application, 3) edge softening
  • Background color
  • Using the reference photo — not to copy but as a starting off point. I’m changing her gaze and expression. I might change the eye color too.

What I’ve learned so far:

  • I’m really wobbly on color
  • But I’m stronger on value
watercolor portrait study with some details

Too pink wth, still seems really washed out

 

watercolor portrait in progress

structure is emerging

watercolor portrait in progress

watercolor portrait in progress with more definition

watercolor portrait in progress - first wash

Filed Under: DIY art school, portrait, watercolor

Old Man and reflections from Carol Carter

October 4, 2020 by riasharon

 

old man with background

Experimented with metallic background and fixed shoulder

I followed along with Art Painting Workshop’s YouTube tutorial.

What a learned:

  • water control
  • Start with a strong drawing.
  • Keep my ink or pencil sketch handy as a reference if I get wobbly about the guide lines in the painting.
  • Keep track of my color mixes, label them on the palette.
  • Don’t try to “fix” too much. Just let it be and if I really hate it, adjust in the next painting otherwise it will look really overworked and scrubby.
  • Wet the areas I want to paint but don’t let the pigment get anywhere close to the waterline to avoid the hard edges completely.
  • Don’t apply a bunch of dark paint at once, layer it up to the final value.
  • Use the soft blending technique to control the spread of pigment within the wet areas.
  • Don’t use a hair dryer, just wait.
  • It takes the pressure off to think of every one as a study or a practice piece.
  • Don’t use the cello tape and be super careful with the masking tape at the end! This guy has some tips on how to prevent tearing.

What I liked:

  • intensity of color
  • range of values
  • modeling/dimensionality
  • structure held up during the process
  • the nose!

What I want to change:

  • mottling
  • overworked look that came from rewetting super pigmented areas and scrubbing out hard lines
  • I liked the plain white background better than the metallic and yellow ochre

 

watercolor of old man complete

Day 5: finished!

Day 4

old man stage 3

Day 3

What’ I’ve learned so far:

  • Glazing is everything! In the video, they work over the same area 10x. It really adds depth. Without the step-by-step demo, I wouldn’t have know how many layers there are in this. As it is, I probably went too dark too fast.
  • Lighting in portraiture is everything!
  • How the heck do you get the paper from drying immediately?!?!
  • It seems weird not to work up all the aspects of the composition concurrently. I’m not sure I would choose to do it that way on my own.

 

old man stage 2

Day 2: Really bummed I forgot to take a picture of the first wash

ink drawing of old man

Carol Carter’s thoughts on watercolor

Lots of great reflections in this interview with Carol Carter:

  • She does several paintings of the same subject before she gets one that is good enough to show.
  • Don’t do exercises. Always do finished paintings. Don’t go back and “fix” awkward parts. Do the painting again, from beginning to end. Learn from your mistakes. Do a progressive painting based on the former one. It’s not about making one painting perfect but a sequence of paintings. It’s not really about the product as much as the process.
  • You’ll develop your visual language over time, like 12 years! 🙂 It’s not magic. It’s just painting.

Filed Under: DIY art school, portrait, watercolor

Watercolor study: succulent with limited color palette

October 1, 2020 by riasharon

For this watercolor study, I’m going to use Arlee Bean’s palette.

 

succulent ink drawing

inked

succulent reference photo

reference photo

Filed Under: DIY art school, watercolor

Portrait Study: Seven and the top five portrait drawing mistakes from Clara Lieu

September 29, 2020 by riasharon

Inked drawing of Seven

Seven

Inked!

Art Prof

Serendipity! I stumbled on artprof.org and this lesson on portraiture just as I’m starting this series. Some reflections as I inked… I approached this drawing very much as a relationship between two figures. I did NOT start with the eyes, nose, and mouth (I had to think about that when Prof. Lieu asked in the video). I did it just like I did the succulent or the cow (posts to come). I go from big forms to small. So maybe I did learn something in Drawing 101.

Also, I’m excited to translate from picture to sketch to ink to watercolor. It’s like Sr. Sheila teaching us how to write a term paper — making notes, making notecards, and writing from there. I like the distance from the original, the opportunities to inject some sort of unconscious translation or stylization. It reminds me of how I had to plan out my printmaking projects.

Some portrait artists to note:

Jordan Casteel. Great interview with the artist where she talks about her twin brother and representing Black men. Really big paintings. Yale and Harlem School

Faith Ringgold. She fights for women artists in the art world — we want 50% at the Whitney Biennial. Art is a visual image of who you are. That’s the power of being an artist.

Alice Neel. Love her quirky portraits — the proportions are all wrong, the perspective, the expressions!

Mark Tansey. A Gagosian artist. Monochromatic — like ONE c0lor! Huge paintings. Example: The Key — a retelling of the story of Adam and Eve getting kicked out of Eden.

Top 5 Portraiture Mistakes

  1. Stressing about likeness and accuracy. There’s emotional baggage associated with portraits (versus still lifes). It affects you emotionally.
  2. Starting with the eyes, nose, mouth. Building the hair, neck, shoulders around the facial features. Those are details and take up very little of the portrait. You should start with the things that take up the most mass. Think about it like a sculptor. You would not start with the eyeball! Start with the structural stuff. The three most important structural elements of a face: the zygomatic arches, the mandible, and the ear — they all connect. It’s like a little intersection. Anatomy is connect the dots. Once you know the basic structure. Even at sketching stage, look at the big things — the slouch, the shoulders, etc. Don’t add those later.
  3. Drawing the details too soon. Simplify the form and establishing the structure. Details are like sprinkles on a cupcake. Bake the cupcake first otherwise you don’t have anything. Details without structure will fall apart. They should be the last 5%. 95% should be building up form, thinking about shadow, lighting, anatomy, structure. Drawings don’t even have to have detail to be successful. Not the pupils, the eye socket!
  4. Drawing exclusively from photos. Train yourself to draw from life and that makes it easier when you draw from photos. Build a foundation of drawing from life. Do quick casual sketches (like of your family). 5 minute sketches. Keep it fresh. Make it surprising to yourself — not what you expect.
  5. Drawing the hair last. You lose the mass of the hair. It’s part of the structure. It’s part of someone’s personality. If you work with it without that mass for so many hours and hope that the personality is going to come across. You end up like they have wigs on. Artificial, like you can just peel the hair off the head. Get the hair in there early on. A portrait isn’t eyes, nose and mouth. You have to work on all of it as a cohesive thing. The chin matters just as much. The way the person holds their shoulders or neck.

Seven: initial sketch and reference photo

No shortcuts! I’m becoming aware of my tendency to punt something down the field…
I’ll deal with that later. I’m going to stop doing that because it just aggravates the problem later. I’m going to deal with it now, assessing whether I am happy with the execution of this piece right here in the sketching stage before I move on — are the expressions the way I want them? The hands? Etc. I will not assume I can fix it in the painting stage.

This is where the translation from a photograph to artwork happens so am I happy with it? I’m not projecting and tracing. I’m actually drawing — intentionally. I don’t want it to look like I traced it. I want something to happen in between those two states. Do I like the translation?

Also at this point, do I have enough data so that I can paint it well? Do I need to add more cues that will help me later?

Ria Sharon sketch of girl and baby

Initial sketch

There’s something wacky going on with the right hand. Re-drawing that before I ink.

Ria Sharon reference photo of girl and baby

Reference photo

 

Filed Under: DIY art school, portrait, watercolor

Watercolor hacks

September 25, 2020 by riasharon

Ria Unson watercolors

Some hacks I’ve come up with so far:

  • ice cube tray for water helps me keep my paint clean
  • labels on my pan set that corresponds to my color chart split primary palette
  • for each painting, I create a palette on a scrap piece of paper that I also use to test blends on the fly

Filed Under: DIY art school, watercolor

Varnishing a watercolor painting

September 25, 2020 by riasharon

Ria Unson watercolor varnishing

Used Gamblin Artist Colors Cold Wax (not affiliate) to varnish my finished chrysanthemum. It did not smear. Supposedly, this can be used instead of glass so I could mount and hang this like a canvas painting.

Filed Under: DIY art school, watercolor

Palette Management

September 23, 2020 by riasharon

Ria Unson palette

I’ve started using erasable markers on my palettes so that I remember what’s what. Assuming each painting takes at least two weeks, this system has been really valuable.

Filed Under: DIY art school, watercolor

Paper matters

September 16, 2020 by riasharon

watercolor paper test

Left: Fluid 140 lb. 100% Cotton Hot Press; Right: Fluid 140 lb. Hot Press

Filed Under: DIY art school, watercolor

Practicing softening edges

September 15, 2020 by riasharon

soft edges

 

If I’m being really neatnicky, I should test this technique with every paper and paint color.

What I learned: it’s more challenging to do with darker colors — meaning more pigment.

Filed Under: DIY art school, watercolor

Brush Inventory

September 14, 2020 by riasharon

large wash brushes

large wash brushes

 

ink brush set

ink brush set

 

random brushes

random brushes

 

round brushes

round brushes

 

craft brush set

craft brush set

What I learned:

  • I have a lot of crap brushes. lol but I’m not going to use that excuse not to paint right now.
  • My favorites: for washes are the ink pens and detail the #6 Van Gogh (in the round brush pic)

Filed Under: DIY art school, watercolor

Watercolor study: chrysanthemum

September 12, 2020 by riasharon

Ria Unson watercolor study

I powered through the leaves in one evening. Painting the bigger areas was both intimidating and fun. What was most important to me was getting the contrast right between the leaves and the petals. I wanted the leaf on the right to be really dark.

What I learned:

  • water control: I’m not great yet but practice makes better.
  • on the leaves: using the side of the brush is great for making the edge smooth
  • I want to do more of these small pieces just to keep working with watercolor
  • I want to try 100% cotton paper

Ria Unson watercolor study

Woo! Hoo! Two weeks later, I finished the petals. I started on September 12.

What I learned:

  • Mistakes are not dealkillers. I used to think watercolor was really unforgiving compared to oil. But I’m amazed at how much I was able to correct things I wasn’t happy with — the way you correct them is just different than oils. So phew, that makes the medium a lot less frightening!
  • I learned how to take my time. I didn’t rush the process. Just an hour every day, slow and steady. That’s another thing I really liked about watercolor: I could stop and come back to it a day later or a week later and that was probably even better than trying to finish it in one fell swoop.
  • I liked how “effortless” it was — the brush is light, the board is light, the paper is light, there’s not much paint. Again, there’s something about oils as much as I love it, it’s so arduous and big and heavy.
  • I noticed how much tension I was holding in my hands/fingers and when I let loose of my grip, my strokes actually came out better, like just “brushing” the surface, literally.
  • I re-learned how to “see” again — how to look really closely and notice how light and shadows make edges. That was fun.

Okay, moving on to leaves….

Ria Unson watercolor study

 

Ria Unson watercolor study

I’m using this project as a warm up and brush control exercise before I work on a personal piece. This process seems to be working. I think I’ll keep doing that — keep two projects going at the same time.

I’m also pondering size. I want to work bigger than this but this 8.5 x 11 size is really manageable — I can turn the board really easily when I need to for controlling edges and water. But as far as finished pieces, I’d like to get comfortable with up to 24 x 36. I’m getting ahead of myself tho. Focus.

 

Ria Usnon watercolor study

Adding the deeper values on the right side is helping “shape” the flower. This assignment like a puzzle. I’m hyper focused on rendering each petal to match the image. It’s only when I step back to see the overall form that it starts to come together. Whereas if I were painting in oil, I would be focusing on the large shapes first before diving deep into the details. Hmmmm. Is that the medium or is it because I’m not making the big decisions for this assignment — just rendering or is it this particular approach to watercolor?

I think with oil I can keep painting over forever so that helps. And the transparency of watercolor means I’m layering up from light to dark so it’s totally different. It’s kind of like a print in that I have to flip the way I’m planning a piece. Some people just totally go with it though and don’t plan.

What I learned:

  • It’s hard to get the dark parts down and have them blend. I end up pushing pigment around and it gets splotchy.
  • I wet the paint to get a damp enough brush to paint smoothly but then it’s not dark enough. I guess I can just glaze but if I glaze on top of a really saturated area, it re-wets it and then that pigment gets pushed around too. Hmmm.

Ria Unson Chrysanthemum exercise

What I’m discovering:

  • It’s easy to fall back into habits of going back into wet areas to adjust things.
  • I don’t have the exact colors that are prescribed in the class. I’m missing that bright bright pink.
  • It would make easier on myself if I didn’t skimp on the drawing.
  • I have a tendency to pass the buck down the line. For example, “I can’t figure that part out. I’ll deal with it in the painting stage.” And that makes the painting stage trickier.

Ria Unson watercolor exercise

What I learned:

I couldn’t protect the highlights in the center. Even if I kept it dry and did the softening edges technique with the damp brush, it eventually spread to the center. If I had to do it over, I might use the masking fluid.

Ria Unson chrysanthemum assignment

Stage 2: after adding some detail and painting the center

 

Ria Unson chrysanthemum study

Stage 1 of assignment from Louise de Masi’s Skillshare class

Here’s where the rubber meets the road, where color mixing + water control + brush handling = actual painting! I’m learning so much, where to even begin?

I don’t want to think about drawing, composition, etc. yet so I’m following along with Louise de Masi’s Master Watercolor Techniques class on Skillshare so I can focus on painting technique.

Notes to self: I’m using Fluid hot press 140 lb. paper. Louise recommends a lot more brushes but I found that I could get into the teeniest corners as well as cover a whole petal with my #8. I used the flat bristle brush as she instructs, to clean up edges and mop up paint for highlights.

What I learned with the first wash:

  • I need to learn exactly how wet to get the paper before applying a wash. This does depend on the paper.
    • If the water is puddling on top then it’s more likely that the edges will be feathery because the water will move outside of where I applied it so I’ll have to clean up the edges.
  • I can use a damp stiff flat brush to clean up edges.
  • I can control the softness of an edge in different ways — I experimented with all sorts of techniques in this first stage
  • I can extend the drying time by “massaging” the water (Maria Raczynska) into the paper.

 

Filed Under: DIY art school, watercolor

Water control #2

September 11, 2020 by riasharon

Ria Unson water control exercise

Denise Sodden’s exercise

I’m enjoying doing these exercises more and more and they serve as a nice warm up to a painting session.
Decided to use them not just as warm up but also see how different colors in my palette look in different concentrations. #1 is 708 and #2 is 533. Using scraps from sketchbooks to conserve paper.

Note for self: these were all done wet on dry.

I already see an improvement from my first set.

What I learned:

  • Brush size matters a lot
  • Mixing up the right amount of paint beforehand helps (assessing the size of the area I want to fill to determine the amount).
  • Keep the size of “the wet edge” manageable. For example, for the glazed value exercises moving along crosswise instead of lengthwise. Even though I can cover a wide surface with the size 8 brush on it’s side in one stroke, I risk parts of the edge drying too much and causing blooms.

 

 

Filed Under: DIY art school, watercolor

Brushes

September 10, 2020 by riasharon

Ria Unson brushes

I bought this set of ink brushes a few years back. When I was working with gouache, I hated them. They were not stiff enough to control the paint because duh, that’s not what they’re for.

What I learned:

  • Yes, brushes matter but I don’t have to get all fancy
  • The range of stroke sizes and control is amazing in this set
  • Each brush holds an amazing amount of paint (compare to Silver Brush Black Velvet).

Ria Unson ink brushes

Filed Under: DIY art school, watercolor

Water control

September 9, 2020 by riasharon

Ria Unson water control exercise

I have none (Denise Sodden’s lesson)

What I learned:

  • Each pigment behaves differently in a gradient wash
  • The right brush size makes all the difference
  • Some colors, like #662, tend to “bronze” at full strength — you can actually see that in the picture I took above.
  • Warm ups really help — I want to start with warm ups before doing any “real” (not sketch) paintings from now on.

Filed Under: DIY art school, watercolor

Secondary colors

September 8, 2020 by riasharon

Ria Unson Secondary Colors

Secondary Colors (Dr. Oto Kano)

What I learned:

  • Again, I can mix up 66 secondary colors just from the 12-color split primary palette, all pretty bright (as opposed to the neutral range I worked with yesterday).
  • These are roughly 50-50 blend of each primary color so if I wanted to do percentages, I could have 560+ colors!

Filed Under: color theory, DIY art school, watercolor

Color Theory 101

September 7, 2020 by riasharon

Just doing a lesson every day…

Ria Unson Complementary Palette

From Dr. Oto Kano’s tutorials on YouTube

What I learned:

  • the range of neutrals I can create with just the 12 colors in my split primary palette
  • I don’t actually have the “correct” complementaries since none of them actually cancel out to absolutely neutral gray but  I don’t care about that as much as knowing what I have available
  • when rendering shadows, I can select and mix up the perfect shade from this reference palette

Filed Under: color theory, DIY art school, watercolor

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A little about me

I have an undergraduate degree in art. By day, I work in higher ed and in my free time I'm currently putting myself through DIY grad school.

I teach classes on creativity and inspiration on Skillshare. I occasionally share my original paintings on Etsy and fine art prints on Minted. I've also been known to make puppy portraits.

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