Saturday, February 20, 2016

Emil Varga Workshop on Painting Skies

My friend Joanne had wanted to learn to paint in watercolour and I had advised that she take the class with Emil Varga at KAGS.

Since her birthday is tomorrow and she was able to be here I enrolled her in the class as her birthday gift and supplied her with the brushes, paint and watercolour paper she would need for the class.

The theme for the workshop was how to paint skies and during the course of the day we worked on three different paintings.















The first painting had a dramatic sky and we put masking tape across the bottom quarter of the paper to protect the area for the snow that would be there and painted in later.

The paper was thoroughly wet with water and we put in various mixtures of French ultramarine blue, burnt sienna, Antwerp blue and cobalt blue.

The paint was sprayed and rolled around on the paper as layers of colour were added to the paper to achieve the moody sky.















Winter Thaw

It was set aside to dry before the background islands could be painted.

The distant islands were painted in using various mixes of French ultramarine blue, cobalt blue, burnt sienna and alizarin crimson.

The tape was then removed leaving with white paper and a large untouched area for the foreground islands to be placed














Last Light

The bottom of the paper was covered with masking tape to protect the white paper then it was wet thoroughly and new gamboge was brushed into the bottom area.

Burnt sienna was applied above and to the side of the yellow, then permanent rose was added on both sides of the yellow.

Clouds were put into the top of the sky with various mixtures of cobalt blue, French ultramarine blue, burnt sienna and permanent rose, leaving some areas of white paper showing through.

It was then set aside to dry before the tape was removed.














The third painting was worked in stages in between the other paintings.

The bottom area of the painting was covered with masking tape and then the paper was wet.

Aureolin was put into the bottom of the sky against the masking tape and then softly blended upward to the top of the sky with clear water and set aside to dry.














Once the paper had dried completely it was wet with clear water and permanent rose was applied slightly over some of the yellow and up into the middle of the sky.

It was then blended upward to the top of the paper with clear water and set aside to dry.

The last colour to be added was cobalt blue and as before the paper was wet with water and the colour added above the permanent rose and blended upward to the top of the paper.














Early Morning Light

I will post each of these painting as more work on them has been completed.

Thank you for taking the time to look at my artwork and I hope you will return often.

No comments:

Post a Comment