Objectives:
- Learn to control the watercolor medium to mix a wide range of specific colors.
- Develop skill with watercolor to paint both larger areas and small details.
- Create depth using atmospheric perspective through color shifts -- More vibrant, and usually warmer, as the objects are closer to you; less saturated, less intense, and cooler as they move away.
- Learn to paint gradations/transitions of color
- Experiment with the medium
Steps:
1. On a piece of 6 x 9" watercolor paper, experiment with different mark-making using watercolor. First, create a drawing of light pencil line that is composed of closed organic and geometric shapes. Then, paint the design using watercolor so that it includes:
- Lines, both thin and broad
- Points, dashes, and other marks
- Washes
- Pale colors
- Intense colors
- Gradations of dark to light
- Gradations of one color changing to another
2. Scales: On a strip of 2” x 12” strip of watercolor paper, measure two rows of 1” x 1” squares.
- Value Scale: In the first series of 5 boxes, paint a sequence of values of a single color (straight from the tube), from very light to very dark, in perfectly equal increments.
- Value Scale with mixed color: In the next series of 5 boxes, paint a sequence of values of a single color that you have mixed (i.e. NOT straight out of the tube, a reddish brown, for example), from very light to very dark, in perfectly equal increments, while maintaining its hue.
- Intensity Scale: Starting with complementary colors at the far ends of the next set of 5 boxes, slowly mix a little of one into the other as you make your way to the middle, so that the middle box is a perfectly neutral color.
- Temperature Scale: In the final series of 5 boxes, place a hue in the middle box, then make it gradually warmer as you move in one direction, and gradually cooler as you move in the other direction. Scale from a warm light version of a color (Add yellow and more water) to a cool dark version of a color (add blue). (Example, a light yellow-green transitioning to a dark blue-green).
3. Make a grid of thirty 1” squares on a piece of 5 x 6" watercolor paper, and mix to match the colors of a master painting of your choice (from the reproductions in the classroom). Control the medium to match the hue, temperature, and intensity of thirty different colors in the master painting.