Watercolour Workshop - part 2

These are some of the exercise sketches I did while participating in Shari Blaukopf's most excellent workshop this week at MacDonald College in the west end of Montreal. 

The black and white sketches are value studies , done as a plan before undertaking a painting.  Shari put me on a colour diet and I only had three near primary colours to work with.  This is also a good way to achieve unity. This was a great exercise as it was also a jump from my little travel kit of hard pans to tube paints which where different hues from those in my kit.

The planning sketch also inherently addresses composition - not only fitting the whole subject of the page, but how to lead the eye and provide a point of interest.  I think I'll start doing 2" x 2" blocking studies on the left (backside) page in my sketchbook prior to starting a sketch. if nothing else it should keep me from running out of room on the page for the whole subject, as I sometimes do.

I brought away several other very practical little reminders and techniques to use as I continue to try and figure out to make watercolours work.

Shari Blaukopf's Watercolour Workshop

I'm spending a couple of days at a watercolour workshop given by Shari Blaukopf at John Abbott College in the west end of Montreal.  Shari is also a member of Urban Sketchers and has been faithfully posting a sketch every day since last fall. http://shariblaukopf.com/2012/06/05/montreal-workshop-day-1/

Today we worked on values.  The exercise was to do a planning sketch which blocked out light, mid and dark areas then do a painting.  I found this very helpful and will continue to block out  a 'plan' before starting into a full page. The photo was my third practice sketch and painting.  It is a mundane representation of a magnificent ginko tree with a huge buttress and multiple stems, which in my experience, is unusual as most of the ginkos I know are one trunk with higher branches.  This illustrates my challenge - my quick sketch is better than my painting.