The bird demo really opened my eyes to what stroke economy really is... It's so incredibly pleasing too. Kinda reminds me of old Japanese sumi ink paintings, where they use single strokes for the whole picture
Thank you my friend 😊🙏🏼 Definitely reminds me of that too! The eastern approach to aesthetics in general is mind-boggling, there's so much I want to learn from them
This is such great advice. I frequently find myself going back over a mark I’ve made and once I do that it never looks quite like I want. Sometimes I end up going over it again and again trying to make it look “right” and the best thing to do is usually to leave it alone. Even going back over it when it’s dry is better than overworking when wet. Thank you!
So true! Very happy you can relate to this concept's importance haha - I've been personally burned so many times due to over-messing with the paint 😂 Keep me posted on how it goes!
Your vast cityscapes really illustrate the importance of not overworking, and it’s paid off for me at least. This is probably one of the most difficult subjects to paint though - knowing which of the zillion buildings to highlight and which to just cover up. You’ve given us lots of examples but when it comes to my own photos, the pulse rate starts rising. Hahahahh. Thanks for the help Liron
This is a great point about the dabbing. I felt more inclined doing this coming from a background as a pencil and graphite artist. It’s a natural tendency to work back and forth based on years of that experience. I’m trying to break that habit with my watercolors and let the water do the work for me. Great content. Thanks!
When I took a workshop with the famous (in the US) Tony Couch, who was trained by Ed Whitney. As an exercise, Ed would allow only 100 strokes per painting, counted by another painter. That sounds like a lot, unless one overworks, like I do. It forces one to economize the brushwork.
Haha that sounds fun! 😁 I should give it a try, I wonder how many I typically use. (Of course I can watch a vid of any of my painting processes and count 😅)
As you have grown and improved your techniques so do we. This video highlights the difference between painting every edge or shape like in a coloring book vs painting large shapes and large washes in one go. I took watercolor live last year and learned so much from the artists. Are you part of the teaching artists for 2022?
Indeed! That's exactly the type of approach that gives me better results, shapes rather than "coloring in areas" (: As for Watercolor Live - had no idea it's a thing, will look into that 😅 (I think I'm super underrated, if I may say so myself... but don't tell anyone I said that 😂😂)
You are right but I see many good watercolour artists who do detailed works... especially botanical...so there you need to be slow and do small areas like each petal .what's your opinion on that?
I found that a spray bottle also helps to have more time to paint wet into wet. Using it too much can be dangerous though. But that goes for everything in watercolor xd
Great question! I'd say you'll need to vary the wash as you paint, and also do wet in wet to inject other paints. You can actually see this well in one of the recent vids, in case you missed it: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-H13TSBGUzbc.html That's at least how I like to approach it (: Hope this helps 😊🙏🏼
I always appreciate what you share, Liron. Thank you. In the painting of the blue jay, when you added the green, you left white space between the bird and the background. Did you go back and connect that or intentionally leave that? Also, what color green was that or did you mix something for it? PS. The link in the description goes to Click Funnel instead of to your workshop.
Thank you for the kind words, and for letting me know about the link! Probably because the campaign no longer runs, will fix it. The current URL for the FFW course is: freewatercolor.com/ffw-course-order As for the bird, you can watch the full narrated process here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ZpNf6B7uxCU.html It was a long time ago, but I believe I mixed a phthalo blue with a warm / neutral yellow to create that green. The reason I didn't let the shapes touch was so they won't mix with tons of cauliflowers and backruns (as one of them was still a little wet, but past the point of blending cleanly) (: I hope this makes sense! - Liron
What specifically Is 'overworked"? Is it too many brush strokes? I thought it meant too many layers. does it mean too much detail or too much paint for the paper to hold? Sometimes I think I know, then I have my doubts. I'm perpetually confused about it and I think I do it all the time but just can't identify it.
