Tip of the month – August 2010

During my vacation workshops more than any other time, I am witness to many interpretations of the same subject. It does not matter if it is a floral or a landscape. Each artist shows their own personal vision in their watercolor. It happens when all are painting the same image with the same color palette; it happens when all are looking at the same subject in their individual way.

These two watercolorists chose a scene at the pond; the pond is not large. Each watercolor includes trees, land, water and rocks. Each painter used the same colors. The first watercolor has a luminous light coming from the back and an overall cool feeling. The second artist has a quality of warm light coming from the trees and a hazy background light.

These two artists chose to paint this late day scene with trees to the side of the meadow. Each used the same palette. In the first work, the trees appear to be in the middle ground of the painting and the distant mountains are defused showing a softer atmosphere. In the second watercolor, the trees show greater detail, making them appear to be closer to the foreground. The shapes of the distant mountains have more definition to shorten the spatial depth. Notice the differences in the foregrounds.

These two artists have also painted the same scene. The first painting has a sharp focus tree in the foreground and defused mountains in the background. The light affects every shape within the painting. The second artist chose to paint the scene as a panorama showing the vast expanse of the land. By darkening the foreground and the trees, our eyes are directed to the light in the middle ground.

The challenge in these watercolors was to paint a scene exhibiting a misty atmosphere. These two artists were at the same site looking in the same direction. The color palettes are similar, but the paintings are not.

Both of these watercolors were painted from the same location. There is a narrow approach to enter this mountain stream. These artists stood about twenty feet apart from each other looking in the same direction. One sketched from the shore of the stream; the other sketched from the middle of the stream. The color palettes were similar and that is where the similarity ended. These approaches to the same scene could not be more different. One of my great pleasures as a teacher is to see the personal interpretation of each artist as they stand before the same scene seeing it in their own way. Thank you to all of the watercolor painters who I had the pleasure of watching as they created these works.

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