Watercolor Painting: A Comprehensive Approach to Mastering the Medium (16 page)

This is the solid foundation upon which Marek’s playful interpretation is built. He remembered to ask if the values were correct, even as he turned up the intensity of the colors.

When it comes to value, watercolor painters work under a strict budget. We have seen how the white paper represents the limit of lightness in the range of
values that are available. There are limits at the other end of the scale that must also be considered. Any color can be made extremely light, of course, but not every color can get dark enough to traverse the full value scale. If you know the limits of the colors you are using, you can adjust your values so that the darkest dark will look dark enough. As you begin to approach the limit, remember to ask:
How dark can I afford to make this?
Cerulean blue, for example, is inherently lighter than ultramarine, which, in turn, will not get as dark as indanthrene blue. This means you may reach the limit of how dark a particular color can get before you have made the darkest darks.

When this happens, you still have options. First, make sure you have enough pigment in your mix. Often a dark is not dark enough simply because it has too much water. When you need a good, rich dark, do not be afraid to mix up some thick paint, especially if you will be applying it to wet paper. You will know when it is too thick if it still looks shiny after it has dried. (This is a job for the practice paper.) If you have made the paint as thick as you dare and it still is not dark enough, you need different colors.
Chapter 6
covers the practicalities of color choice more fully, but in general, the transparent colors make deeper darks than the opaques.

Try this experiment: Start with a relatively opaque red, yellow, and blue, such as cadmium red, hansa yellow, and cerulean blue. Mix them together to make the darkest dark you can. Use plenty of pigment in the mix, making a dense, saturated brushful, and paint a stroke on a scrap of paper.

Now use very transparent primaries, like alizarine crimson, quinacridone gold, and pthalo blue, and once again make the darkest dark you can mix. Don’t be shy. Try to get as close to “too thick” as you can. Make a stroke of this color next to the first one, and compare.

When your picture requires a broad range of darks, it is wise to consider which pigments you choose very early in the painting process. This is yet another example of the benefits of seeing a couple of layers ahead of yourself. Look, for example, at the photograph opposite. If you make your brown doors dark enough to stand out against the walls, can you still make the openings that much darker? It would be sad to reach the moment, late in the painting process, when you are ready for the openings, and then discover that you can’t make them dark enough. Cultivate the habit of exploring the value range your chosen palette can provide
before
committing to those colors.

So far, emphasis has been placed on what to determine
before
you attempt a proper painting of a new subject. There are also skills you can develop that will help you evaluate the paintings when you finish them. These, too, are guided by questions that focus your attention on one thing at a time. In many cases, they are the same questions you would ask before painting, but turned inside out. For example, regarding value, it would be wise to ask “Have I reserved the lights?” instead of “What needs to be reserved?” If you have a place where you can prop up a half-dozen of your paintings and stand back, asking these questions will help you zero in on what is working well and where you need practice.

From this photograph of the west end of El Catedral Municipal in Oaxaca, Mexico, it is clear that the large brown doors that fill the archway need to be significantly darker than the stone walls that surround them, but much lighter than the openings at the bottom of the arch. When mixing the color for the doors, it is not enough just to
see
the range it falls in. You also have make it happen.

Having observed the progress of many watercolor students over the years, I can make a few informed generalizations about the limits we put on our own range. Most common of all is the tendency to stop short of the deep, rich darks the image may require. This is why it is especially important to ask late in the painting process:
Are the darks dark enough?

Of course, certain technical concerns can affect how dark the paint can be, but these can usually be solved with a piece of practice paper and a spirit of inquiry. The trickiest issues seem to have more to do with psychology than technique. For example, all watercolor paint dries lighter than it appears when it is wet. This is always true. You knew it the first week you started painting, right? There comes a point after which it is just plain silly to use this as a reason for not getting dark enough darks. You’ve got practice paper. Do the work, and make sure.
You
are the one who is in charge of your paintings.

As mentioned above, some colors will prevent a mixture from becoming dark enough. Those openings in the doors of El Catedral Municipal on
this page
are seriously dark, but there is still some discernible warmth in the color. Turning up the yellow in your mix would provide warmth, but most true yellows are relatively opaque and limit the depth of the dark. Choosing a strong, transparent warm, like quinacridone gold, will provide the necessary heat without lowering the value of the dark.

Neither of these technical realities is too difficult to overcome, but something more challenging sometimes stands in the way. A large part of the potential range of
values is not being used because we are afraid of getting
too
dark
.
Considering how many watercolors suffer from being too
light,
that’s what we really should be wary of. I have seen many times more paintings where the darks are too light rather than too dark.

Whenever I discover a self-imposed limitation, I want to cross that border right away. As a teacher, it is my job to nudge students out of their comfort zones. Go explore the territory you have been avoiding. If you see that your work consistently stops short of getting dark enough, make a few paintings where the darks are deliberately
too dark.
Once you have seen what “too dark” really looks like, you can take a half step back, knowing that you now have access to the full range of values. I like the metaphor of the race car driver who has taken the turn too fast. He is the one who knows exactly how fast he can safely go. (Okay, he
did
flip his car, but all we have to worry about is a piece of paper.)

TOM HOFFMANN,
NOVEMBER SNOW LOPEZ ISLAND
(IN PROCESS), 2010
WATERCOLOR ON ARCHES COLD PRESS PAPER
11 × 15 INCHES (28 × 38 CM)

Are the darks dark enough?
It was a misty day, but this looks more like fog. Watercolors often suffer from not taking advantage of the full value range. Let’s see what it looks like with darker darks …

TOM HOFFMANN,
NOVEMBER SNOW, LOPEZ ISLAND,
2010
WATERCOLOR ON ARCHES COLD PRESS PAPER
11 × 15 INCHES (28 × 38 CM)

That’s more like it. Darker darks in the foreground generate much more space in the painting.

As the interpreter of the image, you are the one who decides what the
value relationships need to be. What you see is just the starting place. As such, it can be manipulated as much as you see fit. Liberties are yours to take, so make sure to ask yourself:
When should I depart from accuracy?

Working from a photo, such as the one of MacArdle Bay, shown below, can make the job of fine-tuning variables much easier than painting from life, because with a photo you already have shapes on a page. However, using
photographs can also present some challenges. For instance, this scene of McArdle Bay is one I have enjoyed for twenty years, and I am predisposed to see it as flawless. Once it becomes a painting, however, the purely pictorial reality of the image is revealed. It either works as a painting, or it does not. If something feels “not quite right,” we need to detach from our prejudices and take stock. Let’s examine the photo carefully. What about that skinny strip of tree trunk squeezed against the left side, for example? Is that doing any good at all? And look at the thinnest tree on the right side of the scene. It just happens to end exactly even with the top of the headland. And that big zigzag branch lines up with the same ridgetop. The illusion of depth would be better served if I had crouched down just a bit to take the picture, but I am not a photographer.

Like most of us, when I snap a picture I rely on the wealth of information even a bad photo contains to provide a convincing sense of light and space. It doesn’t have to be a great image to be believable. A painting, however, contains only what we put into it. Even though I took the photo, I need to be skeptical of its formal qualities. Considering the arrangement of the dark and light shapes is part of our job as painters; accurately duplicating a photo of the scene is not.

In fact, when painting from life, the scene itself may need to be altered to make a good painting. It can be difficult to give yourself permission to rearrange the natural world. I often see what I should have done only after the painting is finished, and even then only when enough time has elapsed that I no longer remember the reality.

It is tempting to try to explain away problems by saying, “It really looked like that.” But the question is not whether a painting looks just like the scene. We need to ask if it works.

Questioning visual reality marks the beginning of personal expression. The earlier in the process we ask the key question—
When should I depart from accuracy?
—the less paper we use. Variable by variable, we benefit from considering how changing the value, color, wetness, and composition will serve our purposes.