Watercolors in mist, help!!!

[sassybird]

I am doing more landscapes than I have in years, and am wanting to get that special misty look to some of my pieces. Any ideas or advice folks?

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sass

[Phyllis Rennie]

Hmmmmm............seems like I remember Tgault searching for answers to that a couple or three months ago. You might check back in the archives if you don't get the answers you need here. Phyl

[oleCC]

Sass.... did you ever find the answers to this ? Maybe I could help if I could see a specific landscape you are doing that you want this misty look in. There are a few ways to do it, but I don't always approach it in the same way. : ) Carol

[sassybird]

Carol, I wish I could show you. Unfortunately my scanner, which I could never get to work in the first place, is not compatable with my new computer. I checked into getting some things scanned in town, but they want $3 a scan, want me to leave my work with them until they find time to do the scanning, and won't do any cropping for me. I just don't feel comfortable with that scenario, so I may never get to post here. I am very frustrated if you haven't noticed.......lol

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sass

[This message has been edited by sassybird (edited October 08, 2000).]

[LDianeJohnson]

Sassybird,

What medium are you working in? There are so many ways to accomplish that "misty" appearance depending on the paint type.

Diane

[paintfool]

Diane, Sassy is working with water color. I'm sorry i can't be of any help in this area, but if you take a photo of your work & when you get it developed, have them put it on a CD you can post that way. It costs about $13.00 per roll. Since i do not have a working digital camera, that is what i do.
P.S. you can crop them using the CD program.
Cheryl

[LDianeJohnson]

Thanks Cheryl.

Sassy,
Using watercolor for misty looks can be done in various ways depending on the subject. Here are a few ideas-some you may already have tried:

- The old favorite, controlled wet-into-wet in areas, or completely rewetting paper and reapply color.
- Very pale washes over each other, building up the "mist" (can be accomplished with same, analogous or complimentary colors to build up the desired color.)
- Spray bottle with water colored in the shade you wish to overspray the paper in appropriate areas.
- Using non-staining colors, let dry and gently wet/lift out color to create a misty/mottled appearance.
- Using a small natural sponge dampened, to lift or apply delicate color to areas.
- And lots of experimentation http://www.wetcanvas.com/ubb/wink.gif
- Using soft edging between areas with a small dampened brush and delicate strokes.

Diane

[oleCC]

Hey Sassy... this latest issue of Artists Magazine has an article that will help you in this misty stuff....! It pretty much describes the same methods I suggested in an email to you...
I am pleased to see others pulling away from the "purist" attitude about using white watercolor paint instead of just the white of the paper. I had an instructor once who really frowned on using it at all.. but like someone said.. even Sargeant used white qouche..lol
http://www.wetcanvas.com/ubb/smile.gif Carol

[John H]

Sassybird,

Here’s my 2 cents http://www.wetcanvas.com/ubb/smile.gif. The sky mix is blue and white (acrylics). The tree in the middle is a little bit of bluish-green added to the sky mix. The tree on the right is a little bit more bluish-green added to the sky mix. And the tree on the left is even more bluish-green added to the sky mix. Since the trees are all about the same size, their bottoms disappear behind the ridge, and they don’t overlap one another; linear perspective won’t tell the viewer which is closer and which is farther away. But aerial perspective will. You might try using “aerial perspective” throughout your whole landscape (not just the distant background); whatever object you paint, put a little of what color & tone is behind it into it.

John


http://www.artistnation.com/members/paris/john/images/aerialP.jpg
Also, use very little detail on the more distant objects.


[This message has been edited by John H (edited October 20, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by John H (edited October 20, 2000).]

[LarrySeiler]

John's piece here states it in a nutshell.

My answer will seem trite, and risk sounding like I have a cynical attitude. It may come from working around teenagers each day whom I'm trying to get to understand that it is their eyes that must develop. At any rate, I'm just speaking somewhat philosophically as a painter from hindsight, and I fully acknowledge the importance of technical learning. There is the process of technique, but then there is also the process of stages of becoming and then "being" the artist. So..let me ramble on with that being said!

One might say, "how do you draw the nose from this angle?"

I tell 'em that I forgot to take "Nose 101" in school!

The artist responds as simply, as honestly as possible to what he/she sees. The right brain's half (what's more)..could care less what the object is, or if it were rightside up or upside down as it will if permitted simply respond to the object as just another shape, or color, etc;

Painting is a process of seeming at first very easy, then becoming very difficult, and after many years returns to becoming easy again until new challenges are found. Edgar Degas said, "Painting is easy for those that do not know how, but very difficult for those that do!"

When we are more beginners at painting, we get into this mode of thinking that everything comes down to simply knowing a technique, and if we can just learn the secret...we'll get the result.

Well...there is some degree of truth, but still I'm convinced its a process of learning to see, learning to trust one's past successes to dive into new risks.

I see it much like learning to play the guitar. One starts with simple chords, puts a few together to make a song. Then one finds a few solo notes that can be played along. Then one buys a theory book and attempts to understand all notes as performed by rote- apeggios, scales, etc; Yet...I have played with some very fine lead guitarists having quite a reputation that could not play blues. They could not play it because they always played the guitar by rote...not by feel. Everything was timing; everything nailing notes down. To do it, they needed to practice 3 to 5 hours per day.

Yet..once they had all that behind them, or this sense of rote learning... the only way they could learn to play blues was to realize that an amount of risk taking is necessary. To put the known behind. They have to begin to understand the notes a guitar produces are another "voice"...a voice that could wail, cry, mourn...or produce glee and excitement.

Scales become superhighways to jump around from one exit to another as the eyes are closed, and one lets the guitar sing. Eric Clapton was asked how he prepares for a guitar solo, and he admitted that seconds before he is about to play one, he has no idea what he will be playing.

Of course...that ability comes from experience, yet...one should know that such ability is what one is striving for. The time will come, standing before the easel that you will respond purely to the spirit of the thing before you. At your disposal are mega-techniques all tried and true, which you will willingly abandon on the superhighway, because the work and the scene begin to speak to you...and no longer are technical barriers that stifle you.

Again...that doesn't come overnight, but I believe for that moment to come you must anticipate that one day it should come. It should be a war between you and the spirit of the scene, but not a war of "how-to's!"

When someone asks me..."how'd you do that?" I have to actually think for a moment what I did and explain.

So...it is a question of observing and seeing. Perhaps 70% of it. The rest...the technical and application is about 30% of it.

It is this power of observation that really makes one person's command of the technical more expert than anothers, thus we speak of the artist's vision.

How do we paint mist? How does mist "look" different from its surroundings? When you squint your eyes..what details do you see? What values are different from those areas that are not covered in mist?

If what I'm saying doesn't make a whole lot of sense to people, understand that a person whom grabs our spirit in an awesome blues solo and takes us to another place does so because out of his own soul are past experiences...past pains and losses, a deep sense of human empathy and sorrow, as well as encounters of profound joy. A person that does not have such experiences cannot even with the best of techniques project that emotive experience to the listeners.

Sometimes when I'm playing a blues lead..people will see tears coming from my eyes because my entire being is being taken over by the emotion I'm projecting.

Unfortunately...a studio painter is something like an upper middle class person reading about the poverty of another social class. You cannot go into a prison and look into the eyes of other inmates having not so much as gotten a scratch in life without your mother right there to kiss your boo boo and expect to be able to speak into their lives.

If you want to speak "mist" to me...you have to have been there. Your being projects your experience.

So..knowing nothing about you at all, I would simply say...you must experience mist. You must go out in the early morning and early evenings where atmospheric and ground temperatures are at flux...and mist rises. Or spend time along marshy areas at the same times. See it.....feel it.

People ask me all the time for "technical" how-to's on painting water. I can lead them step by step, much like I could explain an inmates pain...but the "X-factor" will be missing and it will more than likely come off stale and stagnant.

I have spent most of my life around water. Seeing it. Smelling the freshness it brings. Hearing its presence and spirit in a lonely forest.

Some ask me...how do you paint fur on animals? I have been charged three times by whitetail deer. I've had encounters with bear. I have witnessed firsthand the blue sheen of a sky's reflection off fur. Sure. I can teach a step by step technique. But, is it the same? Our we really painting out of our experience?"

Go deeper....kindle the passion. Light the flame.

peace,

Larry http://lseiler.artistnation.com


[This message has been edited by lseiler (edited October 22, 2000).]

[nancymae]

That was beautiful Larry...I'm tellin ya...BOOK material!!!! You have a way of words that explain...and touch. I enjoy reading your replies...and am inspired by your comments. Your writing reminds me of the book Artist Spirit.....I'm tellin ya...check out the artist book world!!

Nancy