LESSON PLANS SUMMER 2022 (2nd half) lesson 2. Painting/Pastel from the working drawing.
In this lesson I'm asking my students to put away the images they worked from last week and refer only to the drawings they made in the last lesson. It is surprising (even to me!) just how much can be gleaned from a drawing that appears not to have enough information. The drawing is the beginning of the editing process - from reality to final painting - it's like a session of Chinese whispers...each stage evolves and changes. Here is one of my drawings and the painting which emerged from it.
Summer term, 2nd half 2022. Lesson 2 – Three distances of landscape.
Painting/pastel from the working drawing.
· If you need to, take more time to finish your working drawing. Once the drawing is finished you can no longer refer to the image from which you’ve been working 😊. Everything you need to know will need to be in your drawing.
· Think about the medium you’ve chosen. Is it watercolour? Does your drawing show you explicitly what and where the lightest places are? Can you work with some wet-into-wet looser early layers?
· We looked at John Blockley last week and saw that he uses loose wet layers and brings focus to his paintings at a later stage with darker more defined shapes – he often uses ink with his watercolour to create really dark tones.
· Are you using pastel? Will you work onto dark or coloured paper? You can work directly onto coloured paper with either light or dark pastel. Using your pastel in its side, work first to block in the main shapes – the construction of your landscape. The definition and detail of your landscape comes later.
· Are you mixing your media? Have you chosen a way of negotiating both light and dark? (i.e white paint, white chalk/pastel to refind lost lights). Experiment with your mix of media…work with the ‘let’s see what happens if…’ idea.
· You will have another week to work on this painting so don’t rush it!
· If you finish this piece this week you have options for next week…
Next lesson: You have another week to work on the piece you started today. If you’ve finished today’s piece I suggest you find/choose another image and make a new working drawing. You’ll have gleaned some insight as to what a working drawing needs now and it may inform how you make the new working drawing.
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