Angela Hernandez demonstration, May 2017

by Angela Alvarenga

Angela Hernandez’s beautiful demonstration and witty sense of humor made for a memorable and inspirational evening.
 
“When you’re painting, you’re playing off your imagination to make something magical and not be so literal about it.” This was just one of the many inspirational thoughts that watercolorist Angela Hernandez shared with us while she demonstrated how she paints such breath-taking landscapes. With a small selection of preferred brushes, she was able to capture a variety of shapes and bring texture and depth to life in her painting.
 
Hernandez started her demonstration with the sky, wetting the paper and applying a warm yellow, a cool yellow, warm and cool reds. But then she shocked her viewers when she applied a bold stroke of cobalt blue right over half of it. With complete control of her brush and paints, she continued to mix the colors on the paper, captivating her audience by creating this amazing sky.  Hernandez mainly painted with a large square brush that created bold crisp shapes and avoided muddy colors because she wanted nice clean colors to run into each other.

When creating various landscapes, she added decorative designs to change the pace of the paintings. Overall, she has mastered many techniques on keeping her compositions interesting. Hernandez exaggerates shapes because this gives more meaning and design, creates patterns or adds texture by adding little shapes. During previous river cruises, Hernandez started to explore points of views of landscapes and would bring her sketchbook and camera with her on the excursions. Plein air has helped her understand what to eliminate and what to keep. Although she references her photos, she avoids getting locked in with a photo because she does not want to forget design. “Think about how you want to render something you see. Quiet areas versus busy areas to give contrast.”