Hello 

Last week both watercolor classes were back in full Float-Your-Pigment mode and it is always amazing and rewarding to watch students getting better and better at painting. 

This week I talk about composing your values and getting them arranged correctly.

Super great news!  I Got word yesterday that not only did I get the 1 1/4" BeckerArt Brush made for me but I am getting 2 more brushes made..... the #16 Round BeckerArt Brush and the #4 Rigger BeckerArt Brush 
These are the 3 main brushes I usually use.....they will make a great set.

Also great news is, HK Holbein and BeckerArt are supplying all the art materials free to those taking my workshop to the Greek Islands. No need to pack any supplies!

Both Thursday and Saturday classes are happening this week..... see you there!

Here's to good Values

David

When I was going to the American Academy of Art and had Irving Shapiro as my watercolor mentor, one of the most important lesson he taught was value sketches and make sure you do them. Through the 35+ years of teaching watercolor I have come to the realization that when I have students do pencil value sketches they spend more time on the sketches then doing the watercolor and most of the time they are not getting what I am trying to teach them. Now I instruct my students to turn their color photos to B&W. This helps them see the big value picture.
Watercolorist work from light to dark and you want to be able to work big areas of value, working to the details after the large areas are established.

If you turn a photo to Black and white and there are no big patterns of light and dark values, that's when you will need to do a value sketch to establish that large pattern.

In this photo below you will notice that there are no big value patterns, this would make it difficult to paint this composition in watercolor and not make it looked overworked. I usually have my students steer away from these kinds of photos and look for photos with better value patterns. One could change the values in photos like the one below, but I want my students to first recognize a bad composition and then choose a better reference to work from.  

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