Watercolor Painting for Dummies (32 page)
Read Watercolor Painting for Dummies Online
Authors: Colette Pitcher
Tags: #Art, #Techniques, #Watercolor Painting, #General
Alternation
— not to be confused with alteration, despite the clever heading — is a type of repetition used mostly in creating patterns. The idea is to take a couple of elements (or more) and create a pattern by alternating between them: long, short, long, short, long, short; or circle, square, circle, square. If you want to shake up the pattern, you can use alternation with variation. Short, long, short, long, long, short, short. Keep ’em guessing!
Alternation can be a handy principle to use in an abstract work. When combined with variety, it can be a handy principle in a realistic work too. For example, imagine a painting of a tall tree, short bush, taller tree, tallest tree, and short bush. This combines alternation with variation, which are both forms of repetition. Figure 6-13 shows a repeated design with alternation of circles, swirls, and lines.
Figure 6-13:
Circles, swirls, and lines show alternation in action.
Dominance
is the idea of importance. Some object or element in your picture should be dominant — take the lead role — in the painting. Without dominance, your painting may show too many things of equal importance. Choose something to be more important — something to be dominant.
You can establish dominance using any of the elements — color, texture, line, shape, direction, or size of an item. For example, in a painting with all curvilinear lines and round shapes, the curved lines are the dominant element. You can do the same thing with squares. If the squares are all the same size, it might be a fun pattern, but boring as a painting. But if one square is dominant over the already dominant square shapes, you have an interesting painting on your hands. The dominant square may be larger than the others, a different color, a different texture, or even turned a different direction.
In art, there’s more than one right answer. Unlike math where two plus two always equals four — and four is the only correct answer — art contains hundreds of right answers. That’s good news! So in choosing dominant elements, there are many ways to achieve the correct answer for your painting.
Consider choosing a dominant temperature for your painting. Overall the painting should have one consistent temperature — either cool or warm. (Chapter 5 talks about color temperature.) An easy mistake to make is to evenly mix temperatures. For example, a landscape with a blue sky (cool) and autumn wheat grass (warm) is divided in half by temperature. By making one temperature dominant, you improve the painting. Choose one temperature and follow it throughout the painting. Move the horizon so it doesn’t bisect the painting (for more on horizon placement read Chapter 7). If you move the horizon up toward the sky, then the warm grass colors are two-thirds of the painting. Put clouds that have some warm tones in the sky, and now the painting is seven-eighths warm, so the painting is dominantly warm. You now have a dominant temperature, which makes your painting more appealing.
Another area to consider in your painting is the dominant value. The entire painting should be dominated by light or dark. A painting in which all the parts are in a high or light value is said to be a
high-key
painting. Conversely you can keep all the parts in your painting dark to create a
low-key
painting. Choosing a key is key.
Choosing a dominant color may be a good plan. Consider Picasso’s Blue Period. All his paintings were dominantly blue. Try using one color as a dominant element in your painting with a little complementary color for contrast. Use different values of the dominant color for variety.
It’s not a bad idea to plan the dominance in a painting. You can choose several elements at a time to be dominant: color, value, temperature, shape, size. You can use them all or focus on one at a time. Of course, you don’t have to do any of these suggestions. These are just ideas to improve the design of your painting.
Anything can be dominant, but only
one
object should be dominant. Two dominant objects spell trouble, just like in a pack of wolves. If more than one thing attracts attention, the eye is torn between which item to look at. In a painting, it’s best to be clear about the main idea you want the viewer to see.
Make a small painting exploring dominance. I’ll leave the subject matter up to you for this exercise! Feel free to get creative. My exercise is shown in Figure 6-14.
1.
Choose the size of watercolor paper you want for your painting.
2.
Choose a color to be dominant.
3.
Choose a color temperature to be dominant — warm or cool.
I chose cool blue.
4.
Choose a value to be dominant: light (high key) or dark (low key).
My winter scene is high key.
Figure 6-14:
This miniature painting shows dominance in color, temperature, and value.
You may be a bit overwhelmed by all the principles and rules. But keep in mind that you can’t use every element and principle in every painting. The elements and principles are all your
choices
.
Starting to paint with watercolor is like learning to ski: To improve, try one new thing each ski run. One time when you go down the slope, you may concentrate on a pole plant. Next time you may try to improve carving an edge. Do the same thing with your painting: One time concentrate on balance using colors. Next time try repetition of a shape. Choose one element and one principle to concentrate on, and enjoy the process. When you finish the painting, stand back and analyze it. What did you discover? What can you take to the next painting?
Don’t set yourself up for thinking you must make the perfect painting. The perfect painting has not been made. After all, when asked what my best painting is, I always say it’s my
next
one.
A painting that has it all together is said to be a unified painting.
Unity
is defined as being as one or whole. A unified painting is well balanced in all elements and all parts of the painting. Every element is necessary, and if something were taken away, it would be missed.
To determine whether a painting has unity, mentally divide it into quarters by drawing center lines vertically and horizontally. Now imagine separating the quadrants and see whether the four separate pieces look as if they belong together. If the pieces were tossed together with the quarters from three other paintings, would you be able to tell which pieces go together? If you can answer yes, you’re looking at a unified painting.
To achieve unity within a painting, you need something from the top to be found in the bottom and something from the bottom should be in the top. If you’re working on a landscape, put some of the foreground color in the sky, and put a little sky color in the shadows of the foreground. One element in only one area is alien. Use repetition. Also look from side to side. If you have a green tree on one side, you need a little green somewhere on the other side.
Figure 6-15 shows a painting with a horizon in the middle. On the top is sky of blue. On the bottom is amber-colored grass with one alien green tree in the lower-left quadrant. If this painting were divided into quarters, you might be able to find the two halves, but nothing from the top relates to the bottom — nothing indicates that the halves belong together. This painting hasn’t achieved unity.
Figure 6-15:
An un-unified painting doesn’t hang together.
To unify this painting, repeat the color of the grass in the clouds, and introduce some of the sky color into some of the shadows in the grass. Repeat the green in some other area so it’s no longer just in one spot. The four quarters of the painting in Figure 6-16 now look like they came from the same painting.
Figure 6-16:
A little repetition goes a long way in making a painting unified.
