Try This Exercise

Evelyn Dunphy Studio & Gallery I want to invite you to join me in a New Year of watercolor painting; seeing your skills getting better and better, trying new things, and throwing caution to the winds! Stretch your imagination; I truly believe that if you have the passion to paint a subject, you will find out how to do it.  So let's begin!     Before this photograph is retired, I wanted to use it today because it is a perfect illustration of the principle of keeping the values of shapes in the sunlight within the value range of those light shapes AND Keeping the values within the dark shapes true to the overall dark shape. And if this sounds confusing, please stay with me!

Look at the changes of value in the soft yellows and creams of the rock wall. And then there are the shadowed edges of the cracks and mortar of the wall. Try to focus on those and not the darker shadows. When that light shape is painted, it will be painted with these variations; perhaps naples yellow and a little yellow ochre. You may see other colors; we all see things differently. Then perhaps a neutral "mauve" mixed from cerulean blue and a tiny touch of cadmium red for the shadowed crevices. You could also mix cobalt blue with the red. The important thing to remember is that nothing in this light area can be darker as the lightest part of the dark shape.          Here's a segment of the darker portion of the photograph. Using the same observational skills as we used with the light shape, see the different values within the shape. I'm sure you understand now that when this darker shape is painted with its changes of color and value, no part of it will be as light as the light shape. Why not try this exercise, and then choose a subject of your own and try it? The key in painting the entire photograph is to do a value study in black, gray and white that shows the overall value of the entire subject so that you have a firm idea in your mind what you will be trying to accomplish once you add color.