tea, milk, honey: a watercolor sketching cheat sheet · pdf filesketch: shadow shapes tea , ,...

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Sketch: Shadow Shapes TEA , MILK, HONEY T M H T Silhouette: Wet-in-Wet Details: Wet-on-Dry Start with a clean pencil drawing that captures the shadow shapes you’ll use later Paint in three passes of value: Light, Middle and Dark. Working Larger-to-Smaller, Wetter-to-Dryer (1)TEA: Fill the big shapes with local color, (2)MILK: The cast shadows go on top, (3)HONEY: Small touches of opaque darks EDGE PULLING Make a wet-on-dry hard edged shape, then PULL the edge by placing clear water NEXT to the shape. Pigment will be drawn into the clean water. CHARGING IN Touch a wet area with a pigment loaded brush, it will ‘bloom color’ into the shape but NOT break the wet edge. Use to add color variation to shadow shapes. Works well with warm and cool complements. High Key (light) shapes can also PULL FOCUS THREE BIG SHAPES: Simplify down to the fewest possible shapes. Ideally just Sky, Ground, Subject. GRADIENT OF INTEREST: Greatest density of detail, intensity of color, and highest contrast should cluster around the focal point. Fade towards edges. PULL FOCUS : Detail + Contrast SIMPLIFY A Watercolor Sketching Cheat Sheet : Marc Taro Holmes : CitizenSketcher.com WET-IN-WET, Three big shapes, Transparent washes, Sky in one go, Aim for lightest local color, Remember: Wet washes dry lighter. WET-ON-DRY, Only touch shadow shapes, 100/50/25, Foliage often quite dark, Reserve Lights: Remember the lace dress, Charge-in for color variation, Pull edges to sculpt form. OPAQUE MIX, Look for contact shadows, Only touch darkest darks, Time for the tiny brush, Like an ink drawing, Cluster detail around focal areas for Gradient of Interest. Consider white gouache for recovered lights. TEA MILK HONEY Find out more in: “The Urban Sketcher: Techniques for Seeing and Drawing on Location” from North Light Books Each pass takes half the time, and covers half the surface area as the pass before. And remember: TMH is only a guideline. Once you’ve mastered the process, try painting Direct-to-Color (skip the line drawing entirely - go right to the big shapes). Or use more than three passes. Tea it twice to get richer color. Or change the order, start with darks. Play with it! It can take a couple of hours to do a detailed piece like this on location. If you want to work faster, try sketching in Washable Ink. You get darks instantly by melting the ink line into the Tea wash. But! It is a bit ‘unpredictable’ :) WET BIG SHAPES Small Details DRY M H T 100/50/25 Rule H M Light Shadow spend half your time the painting never gets better than the drawing DRAWING T STOP! Let Dry Dark

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Sketch: Shadow Shapes

TEA, MILK, HONEYT

M

H

T

Silhouette: Wet-in-Wet Details: Wet-on-Dry

Start with a clean pencil drawing that captures the shadow shapes you’ll use laterPaint in three passes of value: Light, Middle and Dark. Working Larger-to-Smaller, Wetter-to-Dryer (1)TEA: Fill the big shapes with local color, (2)MILK: The cast shadows go on top, (3)HONEY: Small touches of opaque darks

EDGE PULLINGMake a wet-on-dry hard edged shape, then PULL the edge by placing clear water NEXT to the shape.Pigment will be drawn into the clean water.

CHARGING IN Touch a wet area with a pigment loaded brush, it will ‘bloom color’ into the shape but NOT break thewet edge. Use to add color variation to shadow shapes. Works well with warm and cool complements.

High Key (light) shapes can also PULL FOCUS

THREE BIG SHAPES: Simplify down to the fewest possible shapes. Ideally just Sky, Ground, Subject.

GRADIENT OF INTEREST: Greatest density of detail, intensity of color, andhighest contrast should cluster around the focal point. Fade towards edges.

PULL FOCUS : Detail + Contrast

SIMPLIFY

A Watercolor Sketching Cheat Sheet : Marc Taro Holmes : CitizenSketcher.com

WET-IN-WET, Three big shapes, Transparent washes, Sky in one go, Aim for lightest local color, Remember: Wet washes dry lighter.

WET-ON-DRY, Only touchshadow shapes, 100/50/25,Foliage often quite dark, Reserve Lights: Remember the lace dress, Charge-in for color variation, Pull edges to sculpt form.

OPAQUE MIX, Look for contact shadows, Only touch darkest darks, Time for the tiny brush, Like an ink drawing, Cluster detail around focal areas for Gradient of Interest. Consider white gouache for recovered lights.

TEAMILK

HONEY

Find out more in: “The Urban Sketcher: Techniques for Seeing and Drawing on Location” from North Light Books

Each pass takes half thetime, and covers half

the surface areaas the pass

before.

And remember:TMH is only a guideline.

Once you’ve mastered the process, try painting Direct-to-Color (skip the line drawing entirely - go right to the big shapes). Or use more than three passes. Tea it twice to get richer color. Or change theorder, start with darks. Play with it!

It can take a couple ofhours to do a detailed piece like this on location.

If you want to work faster, try sketching in Washable Ink.You get darks instantly by melting the ink line into theTea wash.But! It is a bit ‘unpredictable’ :)

WETBIG SHAPES

Small

Details DRY

M

H

T100/50/25 Rule

H

M

Light

Shadow

spendhalf

your

time

the painting

never gets

better than

the drawing

DRAWING

TSTOP! Let Dry

Dark