October 6 watercolor demonstration by Richard Martinez

He  tried a new technique to him, using strips of masking tape to preserve whites for the fence posts, and light glints in the barn.  When he removed them he mixed some gray to “knock them down”, bring areas forward or push them back, as well as indicating the shadows.  He used negative painting to move the horse forward, while creating depth in the middle ground.

We had a fast-paced information-packed demonstration of watercolor by Richard Martinez.  It’s a sign of a good teacher when you get a review of the basics—stuff we all need to remember— the importance of line, direction, contrast, repeating color or shapes, focal points, values.  Richard showed these, with plenty of commentary, as his brush danced around the paper creating the background and focal areas of his painting of a barn.  As he dropped in a warm pink sky, he remarked he would come back with a cool blue.  Later as he brought in greens for the trees, he was sure to carry some of the dark all the way to the top of the painting, in more than one spot.

 

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His barn was not red, nor white, but a  pink/lavendar, with gray.  It didn’t have to be the “right” color to be an interpretation of the subject.  The values worked.  Wonderful shadows lined the front face of the barn, alternating with lines of light streaming though the broken eaves.   As he painted he remarked on checking the shapes, creating direction to move your eyes through the painting, the importance of light against dark and dark against light, and how complementary colors really seem to work to make a painting pop. Thanks Rich for this dynamic demo!