BeckerArt FLOAT-YOUR-PIGMENT Newsletter April. 3rd, Color then Darks

Published: Tue, 04/03/18

Hello

Welcome to the FLOAT-YOUR-PIGMENT Newsletter #150, Color then Darks

Another milestone for this Float-Your-Pigment newsletter. I'm at 150 newsletters. Thanks to all of you that regularly tell me how much you enjoy it. I hope to keep it going for a long long time, there is so much to talk about, I don't think I will ever run out of things I want to tell my students.

This coming Thursday I head to North Carolina to the Kanuga Watermedia Workshops. This will be my first year teaching there. I keep on hearing amazing things about this workshop venue. I will tell you all about it in next week's newsletter, if I can get away for a little to write it up while teaching there.

You can start bidding at the Art for the Paws fundraiser. To bid or just take a look go HERE

NOTICE! I will not be teaching local classes this week or next week.
The Libertyville class will have Sue Macfarlan teaching this and next Thursday

Sue Macfarlan teaches Class at the Civic Center Libertyville, Thursday, April 5th 1 pm to 3:30
Sue asks all that attend on the 5th bring old W/C paintings that you don't like and want to discard. She will be teaching you how to cut them up and use them as a collage in a new work of art.

NO Class at The Antioch Fine Arts Foundation, Thursday, April 5th and 12th

NO Class at BeckerArt Gallery in McHenry, Saturday, April 7th
Gary Wigman will open the classroom on April 14th for those interested in coming to paint.

Color then Darks

The last couple of months in my weekly classes I've been talking a lot about coloring your lights in a painting first, then when all the light colors are finished, you then work in your dark details. I bring this up again in this week's newsletter because last week I ran across the video below by an artist I don't know, but I watched the video on Facebook and this video shows exactly what I have been talking about to my students for months. This artist does a large wet-into-wet wash where he is coloring lights in his first wash. He then lets it dry and then he goes into his dark details.

Most every painting I start I first paint in the light colors, sometimes they cover the entire picture and sometimes they cover parts. I mostly float in the light colors and then after I have established those lights I then start adding in the darks. Darks create things and objects, they usually identify the shapes of an object or area.

When you start with light washes, this is when you can create a color scheme. The first wash establishes the colors that you will work with throughout the rest of the painting, I usually go with complementary colors to create the color scheme. Many artist will do little swatches on a scrap sheet of paper to create the color schemes they want to use.

Keep the first wash simple and use it to color your painting. When you put in your darks remember to add some of the light colors into the dark and make sure they are part of your color scheme.

Remember with watercolors it usually is light to dark!

David

color then darks

In this video it shows how this artist colors all the lights and is a true pigment floater. Always remember that the wash will lightenat least 20% when you float your pigment in a wet wash. You can see this in the video, the artists first wash looks very dark when wet and then when it is dry you can see how much it has lightened up.

Bidding has started on all the works that have been donated by artists to Art for the Paws fundraiser...... You can bid on my painting that is pictured below HERE. There are also a lot of my students that have donated and you can also bid on their paintings too.

My BeckerArt Workshops and Demos in 2018

Here is a updated list of my 2018 workshop, classes and demonstrations.

SOLD OUT... Kanuga Watermedia Workshops, NC. April 7th - 13th, For Information Click Here

DEMO, Dupage Art League, DuPage, IL. April 16th For Information Click Here

DEMO, Dillman's Festival of Artists, Lac du Flambeau, WI. May 27th For Information Click Here

Le Mars Arts Council Workshop, Le Mars, IA. June 5th -7th, For Information Click Here

Dillman's Spring Workshop, Wisconsin, June 10-15th, For information Click Here

Vermont Art Event Classes. Burlington VT, July 23rd -27th, Information to come

Artisan Materials Expo Classes, Santa Fe September 27th-30th, For Information Click Here

11 Artist's of the Week

Jean Pedersen

Richard Stephens

Debora Stewart

Jo Toye

Soon Y Warren

Mike Bailey

Carrie Burns Brown

Kathleen Conover

Robbie Laird

Dale Laitinen

Dean Nimmer

I chose 11 artists for this week's Artist of the Week because these are the instructors I will be meeting and working with at next week's Kanuga Watermedia Workshops. This sounds like so much fun. Will give you the scoop next week.

6 BeckerArt Brushes!
I now have 2 sets of BeckerArt Brushes... they are the original set which includes the 1 1/4" flat, the #16 round and the #4 rigger. My NEW brush set includes the 1/2" flat, the 1/4" flat and the #8 round

Click Here to Purchase BeckerArt Brushes

For any other info please email me at david@davidrbecker.com