Monday, April 27, 2015

A Study of a New York Street Scene in Six Views

For water color home work,  I ended up practicing painting a scene from a photograph 6 times.  Each time learning something different.  My goal was to be less literal and more abstract with my watercolors.  See what transpired.
First try at the scene try to capture a complex image and get the lighting but abstracting form. I overworked the darks with too many passes and it looked messy.
Second try on cheap paper.  Quality of the water color was really bad on the inexpensive paper. 
A little better paper and I tried to focus in to reduce the amount of information.  Still too busy. Some things I liked but not completely happy.
I liked the base of this one  but the upper portion I wasn't as happy with.
This one I did after talking to Tom Hoffman about my previous passes.  This was done in about 30 minutes got the major shapes and the feeling of the activity of the street without being literal. 
One more try at home.  Got a little more fussy but not bad. 

Posted by at
Labels: ,

8 comments:

  1. ol'redApril 27, 2015 at 4:34 PM

    Congratulations on accepting a new challenge and for your energy that clearly shows through the images. I like the direction you're taking and hope you'll continue and share the results. I also like the courage this shows. Frank B

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Gail WongApril 27, 2015 at 10:19 PM

      Thanks Frank,
      Yes I will continue to share my explorations good and bad.

      Delete
  2. Karina KuschnirApril 30, 2015 at 9:04 AM

    beautiful and exciting post! thanks for sharing your experiments!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Gail WongApril 30, 2015 at 10:02 AM

      Thanks Karina,
      Watercolor is so immediate. That until you gain full confidence and have years under your belt it is one continual experiment! Hopefully we get better as we put in more hours.

      Delete
  3. marctaroSeptember 14, 2015 at 4:40 PM

    I just saw this linked over on Shari's blog - what a great experiment. An excellent idea. Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Gail WongSeptember 14, 2015 at 6:15 PM

      Thanks Marc,
      When I am learning something new it doesn't happen right away of course. It is a constant evolution. I keep doing it until I have worked it out of my system!

      Delete
  4. UnknownOctober 4, 2015 at 4:29 AM

    Hi Gail, so interesting to see this - I like no 4 the best . it was so interesting doing your workshop in Singapore and seeing you break down the complexity of a scene. Am trying to do this too. Not so easy! I also saw the link via Shari's blog.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Gail WongOctober 4, 2015 at 11:23 AM

      Thanks Judy, I agree. It is not easy. We want to get all the detail as an urban sketcher. I have to put on another hat when I do this type of painting. More an artist hat how can I break it down to the minimal essence and get what I want to say in simpler terms. It doesn't have to be an exact representation of the scene. But does it get to the feeling of the scene. Can you do it with minimal strokes?

      Delete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)