Jan 6th 2012 Issue

So what does it mean to be part of the Watercolor Crusade? Well, it means to work together to put watercolors in a place to be recognized properly. As a medium, watercolor is beautiful, permanent, and hard to accomplish. I believe we need to work hard to raise awareness so the world will honor it as the high quality medium of art it really is. If you share this belief, please join me and let’s work together in this Crusade!

What Sustains a Good Painting?
It is essentially in the following order – for importance:

1. COLOR – Scenes with the manipulation of color. It is a tool artists have to achieve and capture mood, ambiance, a feeling. Color is one of the things in visual art that impacts people the most. We always see color first, before the object, and then the shape in part by the object, then consequently we read it as what the subject is.

2. VALUES – With values we create a three-dimensional feel of something on a two-dimensional element, like a piece of paper is. With values, we conquer any object, any light, any depth. Is an extremely important tool for an artist to manipulate in order to create luminosity, depth, volume in a painting.

3. SHAPES – We are coordinating different shapes in a painting for maximum impact. Following this way of thinking as a minimalist, in a very simplistic fashion, pretending to presume what the whole complexity of what painting is into four major points, I have to say that as far as design is concerned, there is a department that belong to the coordinating of shapes.

When I see a painting to be done, and a painting that I am contemplating to do, I always go into shapes. There are three major shapes in a strategy to paint: big, small and medium, that we have to coordinate them in a fashion that creates impact, homogeneity and dynamics to the painting. I believe this is where the design is born out of it.

4. EDGES – Meaning “lost and found”. Meaning “hit and miss”. Edges in a painting are paramount because if we follow any brushstroke on previous drawing and we paint on hard edges alone, then the painting becomes too static, emanates a feel of rigidity that is hard to take, is not pleasant to our eyes. It is indispensable that when we paint we constantly have to think in “lost and found”.

It is paramount as we go on hard edges in our painting then sooner or later we have to break that monotony to make it bleed, and that is where we come to “lost and found”, the “yin and yang”. That contradiction in art, the exercise, is the most powerful tool in graphic and visual art; and is the law of antithesis, the law of contradiction, the law of polarity; so it is applicable also in edges: one hard edge, then a soft one.

So basically, that is my very important strategy whenever I am going to tackle a painting. Obviously after so many years of painting, I don’t even think about it.

Beyond Technique: Painting With Passionis a stunning, educational watercolor painting book with detailed, informative captions, as well as four step-by-step lessons – to inspire and build confidence as you apply the techniques explained. This exceptional book is full of helpful advice, insight, demonstrations and anecdotes giving you a refreshing view of how to convey the key concepts of watercolor painting into a powerful work of art.

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• Forget details. Think big!
• Brushstrokes mark the rhythm in a painting.
• Sensitive, expressive brushstrokes make a difference.
• A good brushstroke is one that exploits the characteristics of the paper.