"Red Hair" (watercolor pencil on paper; 11" x 8.5")

 

"Red Hair" (watercolor pencil, 11" x 8.5")

I decided to blog about my online Zoom classes with the Art League School in Alexandria, VA. This is what we did in the fifth week of the fall term, 2021 for my "Watercolor Portraits" class. 

 

The lesson was about drawing portraits in watercolor pencils. The process is similar to watercolor in that we layer from light to dark. On an accurate pencil drawing, I began the portrait by hatching colors, starting with a turquoise to indicate reflected light on the shadow side of the head. Then I hatched and cross-hatched with lightest colors (cream and pale pink) and moved onto the mid-tone colors of orange, scarlet, and red purple; then, finally the dark tones (brown, violet, indigo, and black for the upper lash lines, pupils and iris outlines). When you are hatching and cross-hatching, be consistent and mindful. Below is where I stopped before adding water.

"Red Hair" in progress

When you add water to your drawing with a brush, you will notice the colors deepen dramatically as long as you are using the artist-quality watercolor pencils such as Caran d'Ache Museum Aquarelle and Faber Castell Albrecht Durer. What you are doing is activating the pencils. That's right. We don't use watercolor pencils the way we do waxy colored pencils. On their own, watercolor pencils are anemic-looking; it's only when they are activated with water, they begin to sing. 

 

Please avoid the temptation to scrub the hatched texture to obliterate pencil strokes. If you don't like the strokes, why bother with watercolor pencils? It's time-consuming to hatch and cross-hatch and there is no point in erasing them with water. These pencil strokes add charm and the graphic texture to the finished work.

After the paper dries, you can add more tone by using watercolor pencils as if they are watercolors. How? With a clean wet brush, you pick up tone from the long lead of a pencil and apply it to the desired area. (By the way, I don't use a mechanical pencil sharpener to sharpen my pencils because it tends to eat up pencil leads and sometimes break them!) You can dip the pencil into water and draw with the wet lead (upper lash lines, upper lid folds, hair, etc) to strengthen lines.

 

You can also use a nail file to grate pencil leads onto a wet area to create texture like freckles, etc. Keep adding more tone until you are satisfied. You can of course introduce watercolor, but we didn't in this lesson.

By the way, what kind of paper works best with watercolor pencils? My favorite is Fabriano 140 lb hot press paper; I also like Moleskine watercolor sketchbook and Strathmore 500 series drawing paper pad (8" x 10" is a good size). In other words, smoother paper with less pronounced tooth than Arches 140 lb cold press paper seems to work better.

The following are the colors I find useful for skin tones in case you want to purchase a few more watercolor pencils:

Naples ochre (Museum Aquarelle or M/A), Light flesh (M/A), Medium flesh (Albrecht Durer or A/D), Salmon (A/D), Light purple pink (A/D), Burnt ochre (M/A), Pompeian red (A/D), Purplish red (M/A), Caput Mortuum (A/D), Carmine lake (M/A), Dark flesh (M/A), Violet pink (M/A), Periwinkle blue (M/A), Light malachite green (M/A), Light olive (M/A), Olive yellow (M/A).

I've played around with watercolor pencils. Here are some of the results; the last one is my self-portrait!

"Self-portrait" (watercolor pencil, 8.5" x 5")

"Red on Red" (watercolor on paper, 9" x 12")

 

"Red on Red" (watercolor, 9" x 12")

I decided to blog about my online Zoom classes with the Art League School. This is what we did in the fourth week of the fall term, 2021 for my "Watercolor from Start to Finish" class. This week's lesson was the color Red. The first order of the day was to talk about our three reds (cadmium red, permanent rose, and permanent alizarin crimson) in term of their temperature, value and intensity. I also discussed the importance of color lightfastness and asked you to avoid fugitive colors, such as rose madder genuine, alizarin crimson, opera rose, etc. 

 

Then we mixed oranges and purples from our reds, yellows and blues. I explained why I chose certain colors (think the closeness to each other on the color wheel to achieve brighter versions of the secondary colors). The color-mixing ability comes from experience, but if you understand a bit of "color theory", it's much easier and less "let's hope for the best" than otherwise!

Then we moved on to the business of drawing a vase, first cylindrical glass, then a pitcher with a handle and spout. Many students get stumped on this, so I tried to help you how to draw a symmetrical form utilizing the central axis line and turning the paper upside down to turn off the analytical side of our brain. Here is a page from Bert Dodson's Keys to Drawing, a drawing manual that will help you overcome your fear of drawing. It's the best there is and I have done many the exercises more than once!

 

Finally, we got to the painting. First we drew the shapes with watercolor pencils (red for the red shapes and green for the green stems and leaves), making sure that they don't float in the middle of the paper with tiny positive shapes and a huge negative space. And please overlap shapes!

Then we painted the negative space with cadmium red on dry paper. Use enough paint and lots of water so that paints don't dry on you. Near the right bottom of the paper, introduce a bit of cadmium yellow pale; when you get to the left top of the paper, add some alizarin crimson. Use a large round brush; for tiny "trapped shapes", use a smaller brush. Painting around the positive shapes is called negative painting, which is not the easiest thing in the world. Do the best you can and don't worry about perfection.

If your first wash is too anemic, do another layer on dry paper. Mine looked fine, so I moved onto painting shapes, after firming up the contour lines of the shapes and also indicating the highlight shapes on the vase, apple, peppers and tomatoes with watercolor pencils.

Starting with the vase, we painted the shapes with the appropriate reds (think temperature and value). I explained the form shadow, cast shadow and reflected light. We did the second layer on the vase, apple, pepper, and tomato, and also painted cast shadows (after drawing them first with a purple pencil).

Creating a form (making a shape appear three-dimensional) by using colors (with the same hue but of different temperatures and values, then glazing with the shadow colors for the form shadow, and even softening edges) is hard! I will go over this next week again.

We didn't get very far, so decided to stop here and finish the painting next week. Please develop the painting up to this point.

"Red on Red" in progress

"Emelia Rigl in Sepia" (watercolor on paper; 12" x 9")

I decided to blog about my online Zoom classes with the Art League School. This is what we did in the second week of the fall term for my "Watercolor Portraits" class. We worked on a sepia value study of "Emelia Rigl," who was a New York stage actress in the 1870's. Below is the reference photo for the project.

The first order of the day was do a demo of a three-quarter female portrait drawing, using "Emelia Rigle" as the reference. My drawing below doesn't quite look like her, but hey, you get the idea. (There is too much information to give you a short summary, so please watch the recording to get to the bottom of the business!) At the bottom is the demo drawing.

Then we started the main lesson of the day. We used only burnt sienna (my favorite is Daniel Smith) and cobalt blue. In the value scales, the value 1 is the white of the paper (highlights). The value 7 is as dark as it gets with the mixture of these two colors. The value 9 is black (for the pupils). The high-key paintings crowd around highlights and mid tones; the low-key paintings lack highlights and crowd around mid tones and darks. We won't be using nine values; you can do a convincing portrait with five or six values.

I first painted the background with the mid-tone wash (slightly bluer on the left side). After drying it thoroughly, I started with the lightest wash, covering the entire area of the subject, except the lightest parts (highlights, including the catchlight of her left eye). Don't make this layer too dark and please make it more brown than blue!

In between layers, dry the paper thoroughly. We are glazing, so paper should be bone dry. At each stage, I mixed a slightly darker batch by adding a little more of each paint; mix more than you think necessary. The skin tones are four layers. By the fifth layer, I got everything done, except the pupils, for which you can use black. The hair and black ribbons are the next darkest.

Below is my sample painting. We did an exit poll on which version you like better: the demo or the sample. We all liked the first one (demo); it's punchier! 

 

Portrait Drawing Class with Lisa Semerad I

"Male Head" (graphite)

This summer I started my own portrait/figure drawing program at the Art League School in Alexandria, VA, not to become a portrait painter, but to become a better painter.  The first class I chose is Lisa Semerad 's portrait drawing class.  I took the same class long time ago; I don't remember how much I learned at that time.  Now I am soaking up Lisa's instructions like a sponge, perhaps because I have since become a better artist.

The class runs for four weeks; we meet twice a week for three hours each.  We are now into the third week.  The first two drawings from cast heads were done Tuesday last week.  We were supposed to go through 20 steps mentally each time we worked on a drawing, starting with an eggy oval shape all the way to simple horizontal/vertical planes for light/dark patterns.  I kept messing up the steps out of panic!  Lisa never gives enough time!

"Female Head" (graphite)

Last Thursday we moved on to Conte crayons with the focus on different head shapes.  We modeled, taking turns--lots of fun!  (No, we didn't pose naked.)   I titled the following two drawings "Cleopatra" and "Chinese Empress," inspired by the noble demeanor of the African-American and Asian fellow students.

"Cleopatra" (conte crayon)

"Chinese Empress" (conte crayon)

Yesterday's lesson was blocking (or modeling).  After toning the paper with pastel, we lightly established the shapes within the head.  With a kneaded eraser, we then  restored the light shapes.  We continued to refine features, with an ever light touch.  Finally, we introduced white chalk and darker color pastel to give the drawing more definition and punch.  As I joked in class, watching Lisa doing a 30-minute demo had given us a false sense of confidence; boy, it was hard to manipulate a kneaded eraser or use a darker color without messing up!  

Lisa Semerad doing a demo

"Male Head in Terracotta" (Nupastel)

"Female Head in Blue" (Nupastel)