Blobbing Venice

 I was looking for my 'waterproof' map of Venice for Alison (like you're really going to fall into a canal like Katherine Hepburn!) when I discovered an old pile of blobby Venice watercolors from days of yore...

 It certainly helps to pick up a few post cards whilst in Venice to blob from - your shapes are cut out for you comme ca.

 Taking pictures at l'heure bleu/dusk is another way to get your major shapes cut out for you to paint from. Yes that's moi in '97.

 A double-blob

 Paint in your background blob skyline on top of a wash of gradated colors. Then you can add a gondolier or two in the foreground. Easy peasy.

 Canaletto could blob a gondolier with his eyes closed.

 So can Huck Scarry in his Venice Sketchbook

 One of Scarry's gondolas. Another suberbe blobber is Jean-Louis Morelle.

 Blobbing puts you in a meditative state of mind.

 I touched up an old beginning this morning by adding some washes to the sky and water.

 Then a touchup to the skyline

 Et voila

Thursday I'll be back blobbing up in Maine at David's Fall watercolor class. I need to brushup of my watercolor skills for Paris in October. But first on Wednesday I'll be blobbing for board - giving Rita/Sketchbook Wandering une petite lecon before we scour Portland for macarons and then head up to David's next day for blobbing immersion.

BONNE BLOBBING TO YOU!

Paintbox Colors

Painting your paintbox is a fun thing to do.



 Here's one I did a few years back

 If the paintbox is small it definitely helps

 Sketch it in with Burnt Sienna paint

 Then just color in like a coloring book

 Get to know your paintbox colors

 Make loose swatches of each color in blobs of water on a scrap of paper

 It's easier to do if your water is dirty - easier to see that is.

 This Paris paintbox is on the to-do list. The trouble is not eating the macarons in the setup

 Did you do your blobs last weekend?

 The mess of paintboxes I'm playing with at the moment.

Paintboxes are so portable. Take yours with you this last weekend of summer.

HAVE A FUN HOLIDAY!

 

Blobbing Paris

 Continuing with the blobbing theme PBers. These are water puddles with color dropped in plus tilting the paper to get the color to run around and 'mingle'.

 I learned to mingle colors and make blobs from watercolor artist David Dewey.

 And from his book, The Watercolor Book.

 Here's a good exercise anyone can do if they have a few art postcards. Piero Della Francesco used a wonderfully harmonious color palette and you'll understand it better when you try to match the colors.

 Some color blob thumbnails jammed on a page.

 Several Tuscan blob buildings plus color swatches.

 Multiply color swatches with a landscape plopped in the middle.

 A color wash ground with a little Tuscan landscape laid on top.

 Another.

 There were plenty of color wash pages in my old sketchbook. These are 'color beginnings' as J.M.W.Turner called them - a big atmospheric wash of colors.

 Why not paint a Paris skyline on top with a little help from Google images?

 After mixing up (but not well-mixed) a biggish puddle of cobalt blue + French Ultramarine blue + Burnt Sienna + Burn Umber, I begin drawing the Arc de Triomphe with a brush loaded with unmixed 'organic color'.

 Extending the puddle of 'mingled' paint down and across, always keeping it wet and working fast I add the Eiffel Tower...

 Ever onward, tilting the paper a bit to help the wet paint/colors run and mingle across the page.

Et voila.

Now YOU do it!

Blobbing Sketchbook

 An old friend kindly lent me back some sketchbooks I'd given him a while back when I was clearing out a closet a few summers back.

 I was surprised

 By these

 I thought I'd give you a look.

 Throw down washes (wet color on wet paper).

Then once the washes are dry, drawing on top with with a brush.

 The underwash colors should be pale and warmish.

 For contrast.

 Sometimes I like to draw with a loaded brush, especially figures.

 Sometimes the layering is just abstract blobs.

 Layered blobs on top of blobs.

 With a bit of spatter

 Always put warm colors down 1st and cool colors on top. Not the other way around. To quote The Watercolor Book:

Applying cool over warm gives more luminous results, while applying warm over cool produces darker, more opaque effects.

A quote from British watercolor artist Brabazon Brabazon:

by Brabazon
"Broadly speaking, my mental processes which I attempt to express can be roughly summarized thus: (1) The creation of the nebulous atmosphere in harmony with the scene which will enable me to pass through and beyond the surface of the paper into a world of imagination in which I can breathe and look about me. This we will call depth. (2)Then I am able to observe the main forms and color masses which interest me: form."
 Are you inspired to paint blobs this weekend? I am.

BONNE WEEKEND!