Watercolours, Whickham, Gateshead: October 2012

Friday 26 October 2012

Depth of Field Project - an introduction

Our next project starts on 13 November and is called Depth of Field (DOF). This is a term used to describe a photographic phenomenon. The image below sums up the effect of DOF which essentially is that part of an image is in sharp focus, whilst the rest is not in focus. Click on the image below to go to a website that has a simple guide to the concept and how to set your camera to use this technical aspect of photography in case you want to create your own images to paint from (it doesn't have to be a flower!).

In the resources page opposite "DOF images" are photos that I have taken and that you can choose for your project image if you cannot get images from elsewhere or cannot take them yourself. Our project is to see how we can use this image "language" to create interesting paintings. I would prefer that you do not start your DOF project painting before we get back on 13 November as I want to show you the techniques in watercolour first. But do choose the image(s) you are attracted to and bring in prints of those to the class.

Portraits and Wet on Wet work

We continued with our portraits whilst some of us had a go at working wet on wet, just for fun! The details below show just how astounding watercolour can be - and so incredibly varied. They also show the potential of everyone in the group to develop further. We now have a 2 week break and will be back in class on 13 November. Our next project will be "Depth of Field" and resources will be loaded to this blog shortly. Enjoy the variety and wonderful range of achievements below:

Charles

Dorothy

James

Jan

Jason

Joyce

Margaret

Marie

Maurice

Nigel

Norrie

Pam

Paula

Tom

Wednesday 17 October 2012

Portrait Project (2nd week)

We are all now well and truly getting our teeth into this task. Everyone is working at their own pace and this can be seen in the images below which are at different stages of development. Everyone is showing some great observation skill and there are some exciting portraits in the making. Although we are following the same set of guidelines, each painting is already unique to each of the artists in the group. Apologies to those whose portraits are not included, these will be in next weeks blog post.