Advancing in Watercolor

The “Maine” in Essex

Unity - Center of Interest


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 The Big Picture
The idea of the Big Picture is one that I hope you will refer to as the course develops and you
learn about painting and composition. The Big Picture means the picture as a whole single
unit.
From experience we know that when facing life’s problems perspective or distance is
always revealing and so it is in the the process of creating a painting.The Big Picture is
always preferable to looking only at the smaller parts. This is true when you're starting a new
composition or when your adding the finishing touches on your most recent painting. The
Big picture is the result of all the shapes, colors, brushtrokes…and the consequence of their
working together or not.. In fact if you are not happy with your painting, unsure what is
missing, step back and see it as a whole. Usually the problem area will reveal itself.
Unity in painting is achieved through a balancing of parts. Unity of these parts is what
gives a painting its strength, through every age and every culture this is true. . . conversely if
a painting feels off, or incomplete, unity has not been achieved. Unity is the target for the
artist and it is achieved through a balancing of parts from the first stages through the end.
The most unified state of our watercolor painting is when the paper is new and untouched,
the white paper. As soon as we put down the first mark this unity is upset and we must work
for a balance and a state of unity again.
When you standing in front of your empty paper wondering how to start, or where to
begin - ask your self ”why am I doing this painting” , or what do I want to communicate with
this painting. All the arts are a means of communicating and painting is no different. Visual
art has its own idiom but is, at its root, a means of communication. I would agree with Ed
Whitneys statement “no communication, no art”. It is an important question to resolve for
you to resolve before you begin your painting. For you - the artist- the answer will give you
some guidance throughout the course of the painting. In the case of the painting I am
presenting today in this example my answer was “ Morning Light, The Fenway”… Knowing
that this is my target helps me in being selective in my subject and in creating the mood I
want.
So how to communicate through painting??
That is the million dollar question isn’t it?Everything that follows in our painting is a
result of experience or lack of experience. Knowing how to lead your viewers eye to where
you would like them, knowing and being able to control the color for a dramatic effect or for
subtle reverie. Knowing what to include and what to exclude . And equally important
knowing where the traps are, and being able to avoid them. These abilities are all attainable

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with experience. Experience is the great divider between ourselves and the masters..



not talent.

Center of Interest

The art of composition or design is one of the more difficult skills for us to acquire in
learning how to make convincing, and engaging pictures. There are many parts to learning
to compose - to begin lets embrace the idea of a center of interest.. The final piece should be
one unit resulting from an arrangement of parts. Those parts are put into harmony or
balance with one another around a central idea - our big picture. A good place to start with
composition is a center of interest or a place in your painting that in general has more
interest and used to give the audience more description and understanding than other parts.
We relate other areas to the center of interest and achieve a harmony of parts in this way. The
center of interest is an important idea in visual communication and in establishing our goal
in creating the Big Picture

Center of interest:
Lets put this idea to the test. Where is the
area of interest in this painting. It was my
intention to make it in the area of the Large
boat and it’s reflection. To that effect I have
used several means to identify the center of
interest clearly. one is contrast, 2 is hard edges
3 is the convergence of lines at the boats, the
two boats are connected as one shape and so
too their reflections

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 You might say - “But Gary - all these
things are already in the picture.” True and guess who took the picture?

Photographers use the same principles that painters use as we are both communicating
through the visual language. Painters perhaps have the means to manipulate them more and
so practice with these ideas and make them tools that serve you when composing
My tonal study above drove home the importance of using tonal contrast and hard edges
to draw the eye to the 2 boats - subsequently a more quiet and softer background was
contrived to represent the background which in the photograph was much too busy. That is an
important lesson in this piece - to reduce the background to a simple series of shapes or a
pattern is an important ability we cultivate in the painters art.

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 I start in the water using a mixture of
yellow ocher followed by ult blue blending
them into a -graded wash from top to bottom
leaving it brighter where I plan to place the
boats
I am placing the horizon high in the
painting and working quick with a large
brush to make sure they blend while wet.
Refer to my YouTube video on graded
washes for a drill in this sort of graded wash

With the water drying I start above,

placing the pale yellow ochre followed by a
grayed ult blue - the importance of this wash
can not be understated
Creating the pattern requires an
observation of repeated shapes - in this case
the roof tops - and so I build the wash while
cutting eye shapes until I reach the water
level below.

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 After finishing the difficult background
area I immediately went for the main shape
of the “Maine” - this is a difficult shape -
many man made shapes are. It is
recommended to draw this shape with pencil
and then
I paint this shape with a wash of
altering blue and burnt sienna next on the
page and as soon as I finish the shape of the
boat, preserving some white edges for
definition, I paint the same two colors into
the shadow or reflection. This reflection
shape is then carried into the grass in the
lower left corner so that the entire join shape
of boat reflection and grass is painted at the
same time

I then move to the upper left-hand side

and add more green for the grass behind
about burnt sienna for the shack and pier and
Ballard‘s-the left side is joined and finished.
Onto right side

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 I paint the middle boat now again with
burnt sienna and altering blew a little darker
this time and extend the shape of the boat
into the mast and into the reflection are use
this board to capture the backside of the
main boat.

Next I paint the right side which is

made up of grass and another small boat
floating in the same shape. The grass is
treated in the same way reflections are long
and joined to the main shape of grass and
boat-the angle of the mast is slightly different
than the previous boat and painted with
more burnt Siana

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 In the final stage, I realize that some
adjustments need to be made to unify the
painting, perhaps the most important is to
return to the main boat with a stronger
darker tone and into the grass in the
foreground.
Adding these new darks help to bring
the foreground closer and give the main boat
more focus, which is in line with my center of
interest and motivation for doing this
painting.
It is not uncommon to make these sorts
of adjustments at the end of the painting for
balance, clarity, and a sense of unity.

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