Hello 

What an amazing group of artists and guests I met at the Central New York Watercolor Society workshop/meeting/seminar/demo/critique last Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in Utica, NY.
This watercolor society really knows how to organize a great event. The first 2 days consisted of the workshop I conducted, which included breakfast and lunch for all. The 3rd day was filled with a general meeting, followed by a talk I gave, then lunch, followed by door prizes and raffle, then my demonstration, finishing off with a critique I gave to paintings that members brought to show off. This club really knows how to run an amazing event for their club members and guests. If you live anywhere close to Central New York, I highly recommend joining this group!  http://www.centralnewyorkwatercolorsociety.org/

In today's newsletter, I discuss light to dark and painting large to little

November 13th, Lucy Tonyan, Gary Wigman, and myself will be exhibiting some of our new works at The Palette and Chisel Gallery. Click Here for More Info or scroll down

Yes, there WILL be class Thursday in Libertyville and Saturday at The Studio in McHenry!

don't be afraid of the dark!

David

There are 2 main points I always teach in watercolor and both are extremely important, Float-your-pigment is one of them (the reason for the name of this newsletter), but the one that trumps all other directions in Watercolor is painting Light-to-Dark. 

When I talk about painting from Light-to-Dark I mean you start your washes first by painting in all the lightest values, then switching to darker values when painting over parts of those lighter values. There is also Large-to-Little to consider while painting those washes of Light-to-Dark. Try and paint the biggest areas of light first then switching to details in darker values after and don't be afraid of going over pencil lines into dark areas with your large light washes, they will be covered up by the dark washes and make for clean edges. Many students tend to stop their large light washes at the edge of pencil lines, which make edges look sloppy. The reason you want your light washes to go into the dark areas is it gives you a clean edge but also gives the transparent darks some of the colors used in the light areas.
Dark Details are the last things you put in your painting and are usually the little details of your painting.

Large to Little can also be used in the pencil drawing of the painting, start by drawing large areas, then slowly get smaller and smaller with details.

Below you can see how I paint large areas with my light and medium washes. I paint through the details knowing that later I will paint the dark details on top of the light washes.