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-Let's grab a Coffee and talk about Watercolor!
This is where I share my stories, my technique, my thoughts on art, and announcements. I am in production of making a weekly video for this. But as for now, they will be in written form. I hope you enjoy them and find them informative and helpful. Feel free to comment and ask me anything. Ask me what's your biggest struggle when you paint watercolor.
This is a quick and short update! Now that we are 3 away from the online course launch. As I am wrapping up the launch content, I'm also tackling another huge task ahead of me and my family - moving. I am moving from a over-priced 3 bedroom apartment to a decent size house. The kids will be going to a great school and my wife will have a more comfortable house to live in. The most exciting thing for me in this house though, is that the owner of the house converted half of the garage into this beautiful studio space with great lighting and lots of electric outlets!
The reason I am very determent to include the fundamental drawing in the course is because it is essential for producing a good painting. It is one thing that hinders many students to be able to focus on learning to paint with watercolor. Simply put, if you are struggling with fundamental knowledge of perspective, lighting, and surface material, you can't focus on painting watercolor! Many people are frustrated that they are not able to paint the subject they are passionate about. They don't know how to approach it, where do they start, what's the essential element to it and how to simplify it.
Have you ever been in a place where you done couple paintings, despite all the praise and admiration you've received, you are just not happy about them? Moreover, you are frustrated because you knew you can do better, at least you think you can. The painting in your mind looks much better than what you produced? I feel like I am in that stage right now. At first I thought I've lost my touch. But after looking back to my previous works, I realized that my works are getting better in quality. It's just that I'm entering another stage as an artist. I call this stage - The growing pain stage
The past Saturday was my wife's birthday. Being an artist gives me the privilege to express my feeling for her by painting her. I still remember painting her for the first time in oil back in 2004 when we were still dating. I never get tire of painting her. It gets easier since I am very familiar with the structure of her face and what makes her face. However I do find myself venture out to a new territory when it comes to painting a very familiar subject such as my wife. The confidence I have when painting her helps me to be a bit more bold and give her more character and paint her with less information.
The more I paint, the more I understand the importance of planning. I argue that's probably the main difference between a successful and an unsuccessful painting. When people ask me questions like: Why does my painting looking muddy? How do I paint a loose painting? Why does the painting never turns out the way I want? I can tell the lack of planning is the major contributor of these issues.
This week I am just going to share my new painting video. This video shows the process of how I paint a large scale landscape. One of the key is to focus on deliver the scale and the depth. What you want to do is to re-create this vast view that you get when you are on the top of a mountain. You simply can't see every detail in it nor do you need to. I hope you enjoy the video =)
There's a lot of "know how" in today's world. We are fortunate to be in a society that so much information are available for us! You can learn so much by just spending an hour on YouTube if you know where to look. And the reason for so many "how to" videos on the internet is because people want to get the result. When I am in a restaurant and just ate something tasty. I usually start wondering how did they cook it. Same thing as painting. When people see a beautiful painting, one of the first few question will usually be "how does he/she paint that?" It is important to learn how, the how is the action and process that can yield the result that you are looking for. But that's not the whole story. To ask and wonder about "why" is equal, if not more important than "how".
This is one of the reason why I don't sell in a gallery. Many galleries find ways to charge the customers extra for something that should be cheap or even free. And the artist doesn't have any control over it.
Many people have problem with putting down too many details. The painting starting to look too busy and sometime messy. But having details is not a bad thing, you just need right amount of it and in the right place.
We are wired to look for detail, especially in this day of age where everything is High Definition. From our old CRT television that's roughly 420p, to now 4k television. It seems that we always trying to look for more information. What I find it interestingis that everyone is trying to stands out in the midst of all these overwhelming information. You can see that with the traffic light, billboard, shop sign, yellow cab, and even the DIY garage sell signage! But when it comes to your painting, you have the control over their eyes.