Session 5- Color, Values, Brushwork- Strategies to Improve Painterly Realism

[LarrySeiler]

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/30-Oct-2011/532-simplifying_valuegroups.jpg

Been working long and hard on this one, taking advantage of the extra week with the postponed session two weeks ago..

Here is the thing though...Go To Meeting doesn't understand something like "postpone" and so we are slotted for so many sessions under the one registration.

That being said, a new registration link will be provided soon, I'll add it to this thread when available, on my blog...and other social networking sites. I'm sure those having been receiving regular email updates will get it that way as well...but it is good for folks to know they need to look for it.

Will be sharing the wisdom behind why many of the great teachers of the past, and many great painters today espouse using a limited palette. How to expand what a limited palette of color is capable of incorporating even just a few strategies, and how your own understanding will be greatly increased. Soon...you will understand the danger of buying and adding more and more pigments just because they dangle on a shelf in the art store.

We'll be looking at the importance of values which takes the feet right out from most poorly executed work...a managed values palette to assure optimum success til confidence soars...

and finally...brushwork...how to attack, wield the brush, lay the pigment down, leaving well enough alone!!!

Look for the link... :wave:

[LarrySeiler]

Here is the Outline for this session-

Color, Values, Brushwork- Strategies to Improve Painterly Realism
with artist/instructor Larry Seiler

Premise…
Taking control with deliberate purpose filled
strategies toward efficiency and effectiveness

I. The Poetry or Ah-Hah! of painting-
a) First step is to want more
b) difference between “linear” and “painterly”
c) Paint in a way that engages the viewer

II. Color
a) The discipline acquainting with values
b) Split-Primary Palette (color temperature)
c) Limited Palette (basic colors put out)
d) Split-Complementary Palette
e) Other palettes

III. Painting Trees
a) Block-in
b) Limit yourself to limited value groups
c) sculpt with negative space

IV. Question & Answers

[Vida Evenson]

LOLOLOL..... this has been absolutely crazy!!! First two weeks I got up at 2am but couldn't get on the webinar.... third week I got on but Larry couldn't... fourth week I was too sick to get up and here I am, 2:07 am and I watch Larry say goodbye and sign off!!!!

WHAT???? OH NOOOO!!!! It must have something to do with daylight savings time!

Larry, for some reason the Gods are against me.....

Back to bed, I guess.....

Vida

[LarrySeiler]

Sorry...Vida...what a whirlwind its been for you.

Thankfully...all the sessions are recorded, and will be available soon in this series after next week's last program...

[LarrySeiler]

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/02-Nov-2011/532-guerrillabox.jpg

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/02-Nov-2011/532-paintsetup.jpg


I have been asked about what my gouache pigments are...so, here is my set up...a Guerrilla pochade box, and Holbein pigments.

Also use Yarka or Richeson (Yarkas) for my students, very affordable, and really quite nice paints. I was quite surprised...even thru a few in my paint box.

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/02-Nov-2011/532-yarkas.jpg

I'm thinking...the finer higher end pricier pigments matter more when applied more as thinner washes, requiring a good saturation of pigments and binder. And...I'm coming to think I tend to use gouache quite untraditionally when I paint it creamier, more direct alla prima...and I come to that conclusion by comments of surprise I get from people, emails...etc., when looking at my work. Without such comments...as more a gouache newbie, I wouldn't know...

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/02-Nov-2011/532-gooseberryfalls_gouache.jpg

I also have a few artists out there I greatly admire for their use of gouache, one is an illustrator and friend that gave me my set of Holbein's to experiment with, Fred Harper....

[Sharon_Calgary]

Hi Larry: Thanks for sharing your gouache set-up. I have W&N gouache -do you think that there is any advantage to the Holbein gouache over the W&N?
I also see some palette knives in your gouache pochade box -do you use them with the gouache?

[LarrySeiler]

Hi Larry: Thanks for sharing your gouache set-up. I have W&N gouache -do you think that there is any advantage to the Holbein gouache over the W&N?
I also see some palette knives in your gouache pochade box -do you use them with the gouache?


I haven't painted with gouache long enough, Sharon...to know the finer points to be honest. I know...that Holbein is revered by many painters, so when my friend so generously gave me a small set of them I was blown away.

I have replaced some of my Holbeins with W&N until I can order more Holbeins...but in truth, I have even found the Richeson gouache (Yarkas) pretty good, but it may be more in the way I paint. I might be lucky...that my alla prima method is more flexible.

I use the knives for primarily mixing color...but at times to make small marks to suggest branches as I do my oils. Also...to scrape some paint off the palette...

[Steve Beaubien]

Larry, thanks for all you are doing with this webinar and all you have done in the past for me as well as literally thousands of artists...helping me to understand better why my paintings do and don't work...
I started painting in watercolor, wanted to be loose in style but usually ended up quite tight and detailed...I changed over to oils when I began concentrating on plein air painting and through following your posts on WC and your blog I've always appreciated and enjoyed seeing your gouache paintings. I like the brushwork you use with the gouache and often thing the style reminds me of silk screen artwork.
...looking forward to session five...by the way, are you painting the gouache on the pumice panels? other supports? Stay well...

Steve Beaubien

[LarrySeiler]

...looking forward to session five...by the way, are you painting the gouache on the pumice panels? other supports? Stay well...

Steve Beaubien


Thanks Steve...very kind comments...

I am painting most of my gouache on heavy acid free presentation boards, Strathmore, and my favorite thus far of those is the 400 series black...
Other supports are acid free quality mat boards with their colored surfaces, which is quite lovely to paint on.

Had some interesting and good news last night. As some already know, the piece I had accepted into the 12th annual American Impressionist Society national exhibition was a small little gouache, and that piece sold. What I did not know...and found out last night, was that quite a few were disappointed they had not had the chance to buy it...and thus the host gallery is interested in representing my work out in California. Can't say much more than that right now...but that is always of course good stuff when that happens.

I think they may find interest in my oils too....but, it is also a good thing for artists that paint with gouache who feel I suppose to have less validation toward being recognized. The catalogue of the works listed it as a "watercolor" and it is...an opaque form, but many purists downgrade or wrinkle their nose that it should be compared.

I find all that stuff silly nonsense, and that talent and the painting is really all what in the end finally matter. But, I hope such news comes of encouragement to those painting with gouache. It is a lovely and fun medium...and much of where I am going right now with oils, is because of it.

[Vida Evenson]

Larry,

I'm looking forward to the recordings. Maybe your next classes will work out beautifully for me... ah well... such is life.

I love your Guerilla box. I'm looking into buying one. What size do you have? I'm thinking of buying the 9 x 12 size. There's a saying in Greece which says "something big can be made smaller but something small can't be made bigger"

Vida

[hayday77]

lookiong forward to this session.

[AZSandy]

"Had some interesting and good news last night. As some already know, the piece I had accepted into the 12th annual American Impressionist Society national exhibition was a small little gouache, and that piece sold. What I did not know...and found out last night, was that quite a few were disappointed they had not had the chance to buy it...and thus the host gallery is interested in representing my work out in California. Can't say much more than that right now...but that is always of course good stuff when that happens."

Woohooo Larry!
:clap:

[LarrySeiler]

Larry,


I love your Guerilla box. I'm looking into buying one. What size do you have? I'm thinking of buying the 9 x 12 size. There's a saying in Greece which says "something big can be made smaller but something small can't be made bigger"

Vida

I have a dozen 9"x 12" Guerrilla Boxes, Vida...for when I have plein air students that travel in or want to try them. I have extensions that allow slightly larger works to be painted on them, and smaller than 9" x12" I simply tape to the inside lid... very good boxes...

[LarrySeiler]

thanks Dale, Sandy...

[carol_lee]

Just re-checked time zones...seems you are now on standard time ...will have to get up at 2AM :(.... hope my daughters computer will work... been called for babysitting duty...:lol:

[vitamin]

Larry, I have really enjoyed your sessions and looking forward to this evening's session. I have learned a great lesson from you when you spoke about acrylic underpaintings. I realized that by using too much acrylic paint that I did lose the 'tooth' and that I was able to scratch off the oil paint. I started about three oil paintings with this heavy underpainting and I would like to know if the oil paint can be removed back to the acrylic and then use the canvas for an acrylic painting? Or, should I just start over on a new canvas?
Also, I didn't understand how you were mixing the copal medium and pumice ground. I would like to try this.
Thank you for your help.

[oldradagast]

Larry:

Thanks for another great session tonight! It was great seeing the step-by-step for so many paintings; it made it a lot easier to understand how they were composed and painted.

[leamacd]

Hi Larry - thanks again for an amazing webinar! I had a question about the book you mentioned something like: Bob Ralm Poetry of a Painting. I've tried googling it so I know I don't have the name or the author correct. Can you tell what it is called.
I am mostly a figurative artist but enjoyed and learned a lot through your classes. Thanks so Much!!

[robertsloan2]

Larry, thanks for another great webinar! Also thanks for showing your pochade with the Yarka gouache. I had a set of those years ago and they were very good for an amazingly low price. I won them as a prize in a calligraphy contest and used them to do medieval style illuminations for a historical society. Seeing that you use them for your alla prima gouache techniques is encouraging.

I recently got a set of SoHo Urban Artist gouache for review that came in pots a bit smaller than the Yarkas. Those are similar, so you've given me a good idea of what I can do with them. Yarkas are in such huge generous pots that I'd have no trouble doing big paintings with those. The difference is 30ml vs. 40ml and $9.99 a set or $12.99 for the Yarka set, I just looked it up at Jerry's Artarama. Comparable pricing.

The one thing to watch out for in pots of gouache is that they can get dried out and crack a little, it helps to put a few drops of water in the pot and be patient enough to stir them back to consistent texture if they've been stored too long. I dripped water into my SoHo Urban Artist pots to start softening them up again, the yellow ochre seemed quite hard and the others were moist but had a stiff texture almost like cake icing rather than toothpaste or paint.

Of course if you're doing 120 paintings, daily painting or nearly daily painting, the big pots are likely to be used up so fast that won't happen. But sometimes I've seen sets come from the store that are already starting to dry down, so they need to be thinned immediately to keep them from turning into pots of pan gouache.

[mtnrunner]

Hi Larry - thanks again for an amazing webinar! I had a question about the book you mentioned something like: Bob Ralm Poetry of a Painting. I've tried googling it so I know I don't have the name or the author correct. Can you tell what it is called.
I am mostly a figurative artist but enjoyed and learned a lot through your classes. Thanks so Much!!


The book I believe Larry was referring to is Bob Rohm, The Painterly Approach.
I have it, and it is a very good resource.
http://www.bobrohm.com/painterlyapproach.htm
deb

[carol_lee]

Thanks for the great session..... I wasn't on my computer but on my daughter's lap and at first couldn't get the sound... my fault not the webinar :).... and at 2 AM it was difficult finding my error and not to wake up the whole household...

I have a question about the split complimentary colors... did I see in some of the examples added accent colors that were not part of the palette??? In the Chicago Art image which was based on yellow ,, I thought I saw red accents??? and in another yellow accents.... maybe me at 2AM....:lol:

[Tonalist]

Larry .. Thank you for a Great webinar!..

You've mentioned one of my favorite painters a couple times "Bob Rohm"
I have both his book and his companion dvd.. they are both top notch!
I think along with your webinar series.. man I'm set.. and excited to do my 120 paintings.

Thanks again man...
woody

[Susan Peltonen]

Larry - thank you for an outstanding webinar! I thoroughly enjoyed your teaching style and personality - your students are very lucky indeed!

You have inspired me to loosen up in the way I approach a painting and the way the brushwork is applied. I've noticed over the years that I have gotten quite tight in that respect, and it's been hard for me to break out of that mode. I'm still struggling with the brushwork and with trying to give my paintings a more Impressionistic look, but it's coming along.

The 120 paintings challenge is just what I needed to get me going. I fully intend to meet that goal, and I know that the lessons I learn along the way will make me a better (and happier) painter! I'm looking forward to more workshops from you in the future.

Thanks again!

[leamacd]

Thanks Mtnrunner for the book title, appreciate it.

[hayday77]

OK. I watched this with two friends and we found this very helpful. I was awake during the night designing a new painting with a limited palette. That was demonstrated so well. I am excited to see what happens on my canvasses now.

You are a super instructor! Will be watching for your book and hopefully more webinars.

[LarrySeiler]

Hi Larry - thanks again for an amazing webinar! I had a question about the book you mentioned something like: Bob Ralm Poetry of a Painting. I've tried googling it so I know I don't have the name or the author correct. Can you tell what it is called.
I am mostly a figurative artist but enjoyed and learned a lot through your classes. Thanks so Much!!

here you go....called, the "Painterly Approach" by Bob Rohm

http://www.northlightshop.com/product/the-painterly-approach


:)

thanks

[LarrySeiler]

Thanks everyone...today we are gettin pummeled with ten inches...school out early...no television or satelite television when I get home, and time to fire up the big Ariens 13horse snowblower! I'll answer and get more involved as time allows.

Had much fun last night...you've all been great!

[robertsloan2]

Thanks for the great session..... I wasn't on my computer but on my daughter's lap and at first couldn't get the sound... my fault not the webinar :).... and at 2 AM it was difficult finding my error and not to wake up the whole household...

I have a question about the split complimentary colors... did I see in some of the examples added accent colors that were not part of the palette??? In the Chicago Art image which was based on yellow ,, I thought I saw red accents??? and in another yellow accents.... maybe me at 2AM....:lol:

Carol, I saw that too. Though I think since he had a red-violet in the limited palette that adding a bit of the yellow orange to it would still give it some relative intensity.

If he used a few accent colors in a painting that'd still keep the main harmony, or if he was working strictly with a limited palette those colors can be emphasized by complements sitting next to them. I couldn't tell if that was orange with a dash of purple added to push it toward orangy-red or if he had actual orangy red pigment breaking the strict limited palette.

One of the things that's cool about this is being able to experiment. I loved the way he did different limited palettes on different paintings. Each one harmonized but each one he mixed his colors on looking at the subject, decided what the dominant color was and which near complements, what color harmony to use.

I'm one of those artists who loves to have a lot of different pigments to play with. The more I learn about color, the more often I use a limited palette but pick a different one every time based on that painting. He made a huge point about that when talking about looking at the hues on the color wheel versus which brand name of which paint you're using.

I bought the full range dots set of Daniel Smith watercolors, with some 255 different pigments - and they all fall into that scheme. If I do a painting with a triad of earths it comes out with a different mood than if I used spectrum bright primaries or kick it off to the side with a triad of secondaries or tertiaries. Color fascinates me and Larry's got me all excited about it again.

I want to do the 120 paintings so much I can taste it. Maybe once I get the last bit of legwork/paperwork done on the Street Artist Program, I can officially start - I could always use gouache and postcard sized watercolor blocks and ATC blanks. I'm used to doing ACEOs so doing some of my 120 paintings as ACEOs would be cool.

[LIgirl]

Larry,

Really enjoyed the webinars! Are you planning to do this again some time in the future? Thanks so much!

Betty (LIgirl)

[LarrySeiler]

Larry, I have really enjoyed your sessions and looking forward to this evening's session. I have learned a great lesson from you when you spoke about acrylic underpaintings. I realized that by using too much acrylic paint that I did lose the 'tooth' and that I was able to scratch off the oil paint. I started about three oil paintings with this heavy underpainting and I would like to know if the oil paint can be removed back to the acrylic and then use the canvas for an acrylic painting? Or, should I just start over on a new canvas?

Myself...I'd chalk it up to experience, and know better from here on...just move on.


Also, I didn't understand how you were mixing the copal medium and pumice ground. I would like to try this.
Thank you for your help.

Copal medium is my medium of choice when painting, nothing to do with the ground or pumice. I use an acrylic gesso of high quality, then mix about 2-3 tablespoons of #FFFF pumice into a cup of gesso. Add some acrylic black, perhaps a bit of color to warm it up (toward brown)...

[LarrySeiler]

Larry:

Thanks for another great session tonight! It was great seeing the step-by-step for so many paintings; it made it a lot easier to understand how they were composed and painted.

my pleasure, Matthew...thanks for the affirmation.. :)

[LarrySeiler]

I'm still struggling with the brushwork and with trying to give my paintings a more Impressionistic look, but it's coming along.



that is likely to be a lifelong struggle, FWIW...

Sargent was known to repaint a section, scraping each one off...a half-dozen times or more, Manet scraped one section over 24 times...till the brushwork looked right, was just as they wanted, yet appeared spontaneous.

You get your days where your powers of control come to bear, and your painting is sheer genius, and other days its a declaration of war. What is important is that it remains foremost in your mind as important...!

All fundamentals down, one cannot IMHO advance to a recognized level of mastery where brushwork, and treatment of edges are not an obsession...

[LarrySeiler]

Thanks for the great session..... I wasn't on my computer but on my daughter's lap and at first couldn't get the sound... my fault not the webinar :).... and at 2 AM it was difficult finding my error and not to wake up the whole household...

I have a question about the split complimentary colors... did I see in some of the examples added accent colors that were not part of the palette??? In the Chicago Art image which was based on yellow ,, I thought I saw red accents??? and in another yellow accents.... maybe me at 2AM....:lol:


Well..some things I stressed a few times throughout the session was that you are in the driver's seat. You play with concepts, you use them, but don't let them use you. Its all a grand experiment. When I first began playing with these various palette strategies of past masters...I really shackled myself into following jot and tittle. But, paintings work for reasons paintings work...and somethings you want to pull off and work might do so when you break a rule.

Now...early on I mentioned how artists like to break rules, but predominantly that seems to be because we resent restrictions to our creativity and freedom. Edgar Payne has much to say about that, which I shared...but suffice it to say that if you break a rule...it is because you know what the rule is you are breaking, and why.

so...set up on that street of Chicago I did a couple things. If you look closely at the enlarged image on my blog...

http://larryseiler.blogspot.com/2007/09/chicago-art-institute-lionnocturne.html
(click on image to bring up larger view)

You'll see I have a warm oranger-red undertone. You see it coming thru various areas.

I had a predominantly odd green and yellow glow to trees, to everything, and wanted to anchor it with the undertone I did. Secondly...that color of the lion is blazing, and though the sidewalk takes the eye down toward a secodary asymmetrically balancing focal point, the lion (as it should) calls much attention to itself.

If you can imagine the painting without those little spots of red paint...the sidewalk alone at the time I painted, would not have alone resolved the visual balance and variation I wanted in the painting. There were streetlights and carlights in the distance. I could have painted a green go light...but, believed the red would settle what I needed. For this...I went outside the scope of the limitation so the palette...and put a touch of purer red.

A good eye you have...but more important that you understand the color wheel is a model.

So many people in the CYM camp now...or the five primary color camp argue that we are behind the times and act as though somehow in our dogma of adhering to RYB we do injustice to ourselves. My thinking is...we admire the works of the past for good reason...and the RYB existed a long long time. It is however, and always was a concept...an abstract idea. There is no one blue pigment, red or yellow that we open a tube of paint to. There are any number...but working with a simple model, we can better wade thru the complexities of it all...and make it work for ourselves.

Thus...experiment...at first adhere to the strategies strictly...giving your mind and gut a chance to know and understand its actual limitations...then you WILL KNOW when breaking the rule is fitting and even strategic!

:)

[LarrySeiler]

Thought I would share a lesson I am working with 8th grade students today, a practical way to learn and strike out developing a routine in painting...

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/01-Dec-2011/532-valuestrips1.jpg

I have a screen shot up of a scene in Montana...inspiring...and students are to create a value strip that will help them judge the basic values once we start painting (in acrylics)...

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/01-Dec-2011/532-valuestrips2.jpg
in this case...there are three dominant hues, blue, violet and green...to describe the main color masses. So students create a dark, mid and light value of each...this will account for nine rectangle spaces painted, the last being white...thus ten in total...

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/01-Dec-2011/532-valuestrips3.jpg

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/01-Dec-2011/532-valuestrips4.jpg

I instruct the students not to simply make a dark blue for the dark...but observe the area of blue in the image and judge the darkest blue seen there. So each color mass is judged independently and relative to the scene. The lightest value to compare, mid...etc.,

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/01-Dec-2011/532-finished_strips.jpg

you see the strip of one student finished, the second picture is after we hole punch it.

As the students then begin their painting, they will have their own value strip to judge each of the three values in the value groups.

This breaks it down and simplifies, the trick is building a routine so this happens in the head...eventually adding halftones...and even a broader value range...without losing the need to unify to a cohesive whole...

[ZanBarrage]

I can't believe I missed all these sessions :(
How can I make sure that I can get notice of future sessions with Larry?

[LarrySeiler]

sorry to hear, Zan...not sure how everyone heard. I think some were already in the loop with Johanne's webinars and F&W..probably on a mailing list. The other was advertising within a few forums and this subforum...

I did what I could to get the word out on my blog, on Facebook, etc

Not sure when the next sessions will happen. We are looking somewhat at February...

[IrmaH322]

Are you going to do any wildlife course Larry? I missed this one. Hopefully it will be for download in the future.

[LarrySeiler]

Are you going to do any wildlife course Larry? I missed this one. Hopefully it will be for download in the future.


its a possibility...wildlife art, my roots, and a genre I return to often...

I'm waiting to hear some feedback from my hosts that I can then confidently share with future direction/options...so, just taking ideas for now. Imagine with the busy time of the year for retail upon us...it may take a short while... ;)

[ScottCooper]

I really regret having missed the first couple of sessions this time around, but life happens. I can always buy the series when it comes out...

Thought I'd share a sketch that built a bit on what you've talked about. This is small, 6 x 8, WMO on masonite. I've used various underpainting strategies with acrylic before, but this is a bit of a return to oil for me. The panel was washed with a thin desaturated red in acrylic first, then the big tree masses were laid in with a mud, and the trees painted in and over that, trying to work boldly and directly. I really enjoy the feel of the wet-in-wet, very different from working over a dry acrylic silhouette.

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/23-Mar-2012/535891-WMOwinterSketch.jpg