ダニエル•シャラウのスケッチSKETCHクラス BLOG

Dan’s Fall Colors

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 23:37:27 +0900

Look at the portion of the fence on the other side of the white sign. I squinted my eyes and noticed that the wire for the fence blended together to make a gray color. A few green leaves were still on the tree above and behind the white sign, so I painted the whole lower portion of the trees in that area green. In reality, I could see the school and some branches behind, but I think that would have been too much to show in this painting. I really tried to keep it simple.

Today’s English:

Creating a mood.
If you want a warm feeling for your drawing, choose warm colors.
Tray.
Make the color warmer.
The darker the color you add, the darker the resulting color will be.
What colors can I add to make it lighter/darker/warmer/cooler?
That might be too dark, so you need to add more water.
Big areas.
Start at the top. Go side to side and keep the wet edge going as you paint down the paper.
Make enough paint to keep the edge wet. If you have to stop and mix more paint, the edge might dry leaving a hard edge.
I had plenty of paint here.

Ako’s Fall Colors

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 23:30:46 +0900

Ako, I think you understood the basic idea of how to paint the trees, but not to show too much detail. Your colors are delicate and details minimal. The street could be a bit darker to contrast the wall and trees.

Aya’s Fall Colors

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 23:18:46 +0900

Aya, I think you did a great job on the fence and the color for the Ginko tree. Let’s work on the layout of the drawing in the next class. Like I mentioned, this drawing would have been easier for you if you had drawn the trees smaller.

Remember, squint your eyes and see what color the tree is. With watercolor paint you don’t have to make the tree so real by drawing each leaf. Perhaps the trees could have been painted a bit more smoothly. It is OK if the trees look flat. I think it is more important to show the shape of the outline and color of the trees than it is to show the details.

Dan’s Soba Shop Watercolor

Mon, 15 Nov 2010 12:14:04 +0900

I think I might be putting too much detail into this painting. I like the color but the grass could be a bit more simple to conrast with the building. I am not doing a careful job on areas such as the street and the driveway. I muddled the wash. I like the entrance, however.

Today’s English:

It might be bright outside today.
Do you have sunglasses?
No. I haven’t bought them yet.
I bought a palette and squeezed my colors into it.
What is this made from?
Did you catch a cold?
I made a mistake on this pointer.
This one I made a mistake, but on purpose.
I dabbed here.
My specialty is color pencil.
I’m still learning about watercolors.
Compared with his work(drawings), I’m an amateur.
First I scan my thumbnail sketches into the computer. Then, I enlarge and trace them. When I trace them, I add details and make adjustments and changes.

The chain in front of the shop is no longer there. It shattered.

Aya’s Soba shop Watercolor

Mon, 15 Nov 2010 12:13:58 +0900

I think you did a nice job on the garage. The detail is nice and the color variation is good. I hope the weather is cloudy next time so we can see the building. It was difficult to look towards the shop last Friday.

Ako’s Soba shop Watercolor

Fri, 12 Nov 2010 16:09:54 +0900

Ako, I think you could vary the shade of beige that you are using on the building. Especially around the enterance. The garage needs to be a bit darker. The tiles turned out nicely, however as did the vegetation. You did a nice job on the driveway.

A Great Watercolor Video

Fri, 5 Nov 2010 09:29:56 +0900

Click on the photo above to see the video. Look at how he mixes the paint and then puts it on the paper. Also look at how he holds the paint brush when he paints the tree. Also, look at when you put a dark color next to a light area, it really stands out. He puts a dark edge next to the shadow. He uses light colors and dark colors. Good contrast.

Dan’s Skyline Sketch

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 16:26:31 +0900

Aya, you asked me what color you should paint white buildings. Well, you can either leave them white with no color or color them like I did. Notice the pale green building in the center. It is a white building, but I needed to color it since the background is white.

Today’s English:

Here, the buildings were disappearing into the clouds.

I drew very lightly with pencil, just to help me know where to paint.

I guessed here.

About cold weather sketching:
I wear a base layer.
Craft base layer(the women’s version): http://www.amazon.com/Craft-Zero-Womens-Sleeve-White/dp/B001FAGWVA/ref=sr_1_33?ie=UTF8&qid=1288338265&sr=8-33

Really quickly, draw some buildings.
Watercolors get lighter as they dry.
I draw the background first.
Paint the big shapes first and then go back and paint the details.
Let your paint dry or it will bleed.
Detailed
Load your brush with water.
Ako said: “Sorry, I bumped your shoes.”

Ako’s Skyline Sketch 2

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 16:20:44 +0900

I am sorry I didn’t take a very good photo of your painting. Your original is much better. I think your watercolor is the perfect strength. However, I think you should use just one color for the trees--perhaps a warmer green mixed with more brown as well. I think you tried to make the trees 3D and realistic, but that is not necessary. Make them flat with one color. If we were closer to the trees, then that would be OK.

Aya’s Skyline Sketch

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 16:17:01 +0900

I am sorry I didn’t take a very good photo of your painting. Your original is much better. Like I mentioned, you could use more color. Watercolor paints lighten as they dry. Please note my note about white buildings on my drawings page. Be careful about the horizontal lines. Make them parallel.

Dan’s Final Sketch

Wed, 20 Oct 2010 22:08:35 +0900

While my sketch is far from perfect, note that there are various line strengths or line weights from light to dark. Not just dark and not just light. For example, look at the railing on top of the building. The top of the building is the darkest, then the top of the railing is next. The vertical lines are the lightest. I look forward to coloring this. I am bit nervous to add color, but excited all the same.

Aya’s Final Pencil Sketch

Wed, 20 Oct 2010 22:03:24 +0900

Aya, I think your sketch turned out great. I didn’t take a very good photograph of it, but I think that some of your lines could be a bit darker. There is a bit too much difference between the darkest line and the lightest. Some in-between tones would help it. For example, the railing on the top of the building could be medium strength lines. Don’t worry now about that. We will be coloring our sketches next.

Ako’s Final Pencil Sketch

Wed, 20 Oct 2010 21:59:03 +0900

Ako, don’t worry about some of the angles we talked about. The garage is a bit sparse, but you can fill it using watercolor when we paint our sketches. I think this sketch has improved a lot! Great job!

Ako’s notes

Wed, 20 Oct 2010 21:55:53 +0900

I like your note taking Ako. Better than mine.

Today’s English

Fri, 15 Oct 2010 15:23:53 +0900

Spider web
The videos are not in order.
From the restaurant, we sketched the cityscape(skyline or riverfront).
First I painted the light colors.
The buildings disappeared into the clouds.
Is this the expressway?
This color I don’t like and this blue is too strong.
______________
What lines do you darken?
•The change in planes(dark lines separating the planes).
•The main edge lines or outer edges of main objects.
______________
Masking fluid
______________
Try to darken the lines that I did and see what happens to your sketch.
______________
Overlap your lines--it’s more interesting.
Stutter start your lines--it adds flair to them.
Messy sloppy lines are not boring lines.
______________
Be careful. You are starting to smudge or smear your lines.
Use a tissue to keep your hand off the paper.
______________
Column or post

Painting Grass

Fri, 15 Oct 2010 10:57:14 +0900

Ako and Aya, you might find this interesting. We will be painting our sketches. There is a patch of grass in front of our building. Here is the transcript of the first video. If you click Transcript while the movie is running, you can read what you hear.

"Ok, we're going to clean out a space in the palette and this area here has my primary colors. Red, blue, and yellow. Right there. So, this is a special place because you use primary colors quite a bit. So, I use them and I'm able to work it so they're all in one space and then I don't have to go to the different parts of the palette to pick them up. We're going to leave that alone for right now and we're going to start work on the golden part of the field. So, that's going to be yellow and we're going to put in some yellow ochre. So, we're going to put in this yellow and yellow ochre together. You may want to put in a touch of red too. This will keep us from going to yellow too much. And golden, it makes it more golden looking. Ok, that's the beginning there. So, we're going to lay this in really quickly. Make sure we got all the edges taken off. And leave some white space but sort of make it sort of mottled so it's non-descriptive where it's going to be, exactly."

Read more: Watercolor Painting: Grass Field: How to Paint a Watercolor Landscape | eHow.co.uk http://www.ehow.co.uk/video_2374709_watercolor-painting-grass-field.html#Transcript#ixzz12OGYpKLd

Adachi-Ku Skyline

Sat, 9 Oct 2010 22:24:55 +0900

I took part in a sketch class today to improve my skills. The class was taught by a local architect named Ohbuchi Sumio大淵澄夫. I found the practice valuable. 　Here is his website: http://www2.tbb.t-com.ne.jp/atelier-o/
We met in the restaurant on the seventh floor of the Adachi-ku Central Library: http://adachikanko.jp/search/result.php?id=47
This was the first time I had drawn a skyline before and I was a bit nervous about it. When he said we were going to do it in water color, my blood froze, but it turned out to be quite fun. There wasn’t really a set of buildings to focus on, but the expressway ended up being the unifying element for the drawing, so I was glad it was there. I like the sweeping motion it makes across the scene. It was raining quite hard during the class and the buildings were starting to disappear, especially to the left of the scene. I wish I had had more room on the left side of the paper to show the buildings fading into the misty clouds. We only had 40 minutes to draw, so I had to stop where I did. I could have painted a few more buildings under the expressway. The blue scaffolding cover sticks out a bit too much and there really isn’t a purple building in the center. Ohbuchi-san gave us only three colors to work with; purple, sepia and blue. It took me a while to get used to the paper plate palette provided. The water kept soaking into the plate making the colors too strong, but he gave us a nice brush to work with, so I couldn’t complain too much. I think I am going to try some more skyline drawings soon.

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