Betsey MacDonald: Wash On A Line - 4 Week Watercolor & Ink class (Intermediate/Advanced)

Description: Drawing improves painting in so many ways and it can be successfully used along with watercolor. Drawing sharpens eye-hand coordination, it improves observational skills, it allows us to simplify complex shapes and establish composition before adding color. First, we’ll study two artists who create beautiful images with line and watercolor. Then we’ll use pens and brushes to draw from life using my dogs as models, a human model, colorful vegetables and fruits as well as our own photographs. We’ll combine our detailed drawings with expressive, soft, loose, translucent watercolor washes, first in monochrome, then a limited pallet and finally in full color. Precise ink lines with loose wet-on-wet watercolor will create a compelling artistic contrast and help us all to be less rigid in our approach to watercolor.

Objectives:

• Improve observational skills through drawing from life
• Experiment with line in a variety of ways to render objects and create form
• Practice the art of contour drawing to learn to better “see”
• Use gesture drawing to capture the energy and pose of a subject
• Use watercolor in a loose, spontaneous, expressive way
• Experiment with a variety of watercolor techniques.
• Gain a better understanding of color theory
• Learn to work with both monochrome and limited pallet
• Observe, critique and discuss student work and master paintings
• Gain a greater appreciation of how drawing and painting can be connected

Materials student will need to provide:  Watercolor set(an inexpensive tray is fine but a set of tubes with palette is great, too), variety of brushes, watercolor block or pad(at least 140 lb, 8x 10, 12 x 16, 16 x 20, , hot and/or cold press paper, pad of drawing paper or mixed media paper, jar or two for water, spray bottle, #2 pencil, Micron fineliner pens with fine points and brushes, (a simple set of 4 is fine) or nib pens with waterproof ink, like Speedball that won’t run with water, paper towels. Charlie Mackesy’s book, “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse” or his new one “Always Remember “ $12 on Amazon ( this is not necessary but it’s gorgeous and we will draw from it in class. I’ll project also so you don’t NEED it. We’ll also look at Rien Poortvliet whose books are much more expensive. I will bring several and project but you might want to check them out and possibly buy one.

Materials provided by instructor: Dogs for the first class, still life set up, model for one class, lots of materials for students to try.

Betsey MacDonald Bio