Backgrounds

Background. No, the "background" is not a separate and distinct part of the painting--it is the anchor and foundation for the painting. If your main "object" is the only shape painted then the object is foremost and floating, like a cut-out of construction paper glued onto another sheet of paper--no connection--no integration. why is this important? compostional integrity.

in any given composition whether it is still life or plein air or from sketches etc., the selected center of interest is the drama point, the aha. many emerging artists overlook the background as a prop or blank setting for the main shapes. No. the background is a part of the composition, a part of the focal point so that the primary object and message is connected to the surrounding context or supporting shapes. i remember starting with value sketches in my first book ( another story for tomorrow),  where the values were divided between and among the foreground, midground and background, things i learned from reading. after many years of painting i realized that this was insane, that the fore-mid- and backgrounds all worked together to connect the composition and connect it to the frame or "window" of the painting.

tomorrow, i will tell a funny story about how i went from a classic pen and ink guy to a watercolorist. wow. keep painting  RK

Pencil or No Pencil Lines

Many beginning painters are curious about whether or not to leave the pencil lines of underlying sketches on the painting, or remove. the choice is personal from what i can gather from professional artists. American impressionists like Charles Reid, ("Pulling Your Paintings Together", "The Natural Way to Paint", etc. Watson-Guptill) leaves his pencil lines and they become an importatn part of his painting result and they assist in implying certain edge conditions and detail. Many painters, Eric Weigardt included, put minimal pencil lines on paper with more gesturing motions and large outlines, making them less visible in the final painting. I prefer to erase most if not all of the background pencil lines with a kneaded erasure. Why? I want the final watercolor painting to be as much about what the watercolor is achieving (edge conditions, detail illusion, etc.) and not depend upon another media for those conditions.  Bottom line, personal choice and desired affect--mixed medium or pure watercolor, or watercolor with a slight mixed medium assist (Reid).  Have fun. RK

Grays again

More questions on grays. bottom line, remember that grays must have a color! Battleship gray refers to the colorless neutral gray that navies paint their ships so that they are harder to see against the ocean and sky. in painting we want grays that are colorful, not neutral or the neutral will deaden your paintings. many painters will have 85% of painting in colored grays and the remaining 15% in primary and secondary colors for emphasis. no set forumula.

Remember: a gray is a mizture of all three primaries-red, yellow and blue.  if a red gray than red is dominant; if a purple gray then red and blue are dominant; if a green gray, they blue and yellow are dominant. I can use the same mixture in the mixing well of palette and bounce the gray all over the color spectrum by what colors i bring in to mix. if my mixture is somewhat greenish and i want more purple, i add more red and blue until the purple appears and the green disappears.  try this exercise.  refer to Jeanne Dobie, "Making Colors Sing", North Light Books, Cincinnati.