Watercolour experience - tips and tricks that I've learned

It's been a year when I tried watercolour for my first time. I found a series lectures on this topic on youtube via a great artist by the name of Stan Miller:

https://www.youtube.com/user/Stanleylestermiller

The quality of the videos isn't the greatest but the information I think is top-notch. Stan himself is a master watercolorist and I think there's merely no one better...

The main difference between watercolour and oil paint for example is that watercolour is not opaque medium, it's transparent and you have to basically diligently start from the lightest colour and go step by step towards darks. So in watercolour planning ahead is crucial - once you put a darker colour than you've intended in and don't react within 5 seconds or so you can't really fix it. That is the reason why it's one of the hardest mediums to handle.


You always have to be careful and aware about edge work. You have to do it on the go every time you put the color, line, splash of mixture on the paper. There's no way how to fix the edges afterward.
That's the main reason I think that my picture of John Scofield lacking various edges - I was more focus on leaving the highlights untouched - nose, beard, forehead. Next time I'm gonna be more aware I promise!

So in my little step by step pictorial demostration I show you how I proceeded with the portrait of John Scofield - my favorite Jazz guitarist.

STEP 1. Reference picture:

I must admit this picture lacking various edges itself - that is the reason why painting from life is more accurate and you can add more of your perception of the subject. Unfortunately John didn't want to go the the bloody rainy England :-)

STEP 2. Lay in the drawing:

No cropping! I always try to do it freehand from observation. Sense for proportion is like a muscle and it is necessary I think to exercise it whenever you can - If I would be professional artist with deadlines maybe I would have to crop it but if you have all time in the world I suggest do it freehand. It's not perfect but I think likeness is almost there...

One most important thing - in watercolour it is crucial to have this lay in as accurate as possible due the properties we've discussed - no room for error.

STEP 3. Laying in the colours:

I'd stared with the most difficult area crucial for likeness - eyes and nose, then more compelled for completion I proceeded outwards the face. 

STEP 4: Finishing the painting.

- I definitely overthought the background and the three colour is to much. I've learnt from this mistake and I now now that the simpler background the better...

John Scofiel portrait (watercolour on A4 watercolour paper)

As you can see if you concentrate to much on one thing you can lost awareness of something else - I think I depicted the likeness in some degree and the colour and values (which is the most important thing) are on spot. But I definitely lost perspective and some sense of the form in the picture (feels flat) and as I've said edge work is not something to brag about also. 

It's been a year since I did this one so I hope that I've made a significant progress along past 12 month and my work is better now. Although I'm more focused on oil painting...

Have a lovely state of being, Petr

Fantastic movie to be seen

I've found just hour ago this little movie about old master from renaissance and their discoveries.

It's a worthwhile movie to be seen, I highly recommend to you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp5iqYawEw8

Have a nice Sunday Everyone!

Reference pictures - sometimes a struggle.

I know what you'll tell me. Painting from pictures isn't such a experience as a painting from life. And I have to agree. But sometimes it's hard to seek out interesting ideas for life painting if you want to stay at home. That's even more truthful if you live in cold England...

I've recently met a great pages where people from all around a globe offer their photographs for artist as a reference pictures. Here there are:

https://pmp-art.com

Great thing about it is that you pick your picture, portray it in your own style and you post it on the pages and tag a creator of the photo reference so that he or she can see that his or her photo was inspiring for an effort.

I've done two pieces from this pages and both had a huge success among the people on pmp-art.com which made me so happy and I keeps me motivated (although today was a hard day at work and I've decided just to procrastinate which doesn't feel always good but what you gonna do right? :-) )

Here they are:

Tiger cub (oil on gesso board 6 x 8 inches)

Samurai (oil on streched canvas 20x30 inches)

If you want to see the actual reference photos go to my profile on the pmp-art.com

https://pmp-art.com/petr-stranik

where are the linkages under my paintings that will bring you towards creators...

Have a nice Evening everyone!

Commission as a pure pleasure

On 4th of December I visited my dear friend Andrew in his lovely house in Menston which is small area near Otley -really nice place to visit and I recommend you to do it if you're in west Yorkshire.
Andrew is a person whom I hold a big gratitude to. He gave me my job! Thanks to him I can make a living here in England as a delivery driver.

But this article is mainly about our collaboration in artistic field. He'd saw my paintings of big cats (Security, Spotted which you can also find in section "ART-WILDLIFE") and he thought that I would be able to manage to capture his gorgeous german shepherds Izak and Zephyr.

So on that Sunday the 4th I went to his house and met his lovely wife Sonia and the figures of action - Izak and Zephyr. Guys were in a great mood and it was such a blast to see them thrive (I think Zephyr  didn't have a pleasant childhood and Andrew and Sonia rescued him from suffering). I made a bunch of reference pictures on the sofa, in the garden, in doors and outdoors in various position to get myself exited in order to portray them right.

Part of the deal was to make another picture of their old dog Reuben who unfortunately past away year ago. So the quest here was to make two paintings - one of Reuben's from an old photograph and one of Izak and Zephyr all together from the reference that I would obtain for myself in the place of action - home of Andrew's. On the following pictures you can see chronological process of making this painting. At the very bottom of the page you can see a painting of Reuben's as well...

Pic. No. 1 - chasing the right posture of the guys in their home

Pic. No. 2 Preliminary sketch of my picked composition - the main emphasis here is on the expression of a different temperaments of the Izak and Zephyr (Zephyr is more subtle and quiet and Izak is more curious)

Pic. No. 3 Early stage of a putting colour in place...

Pic. No. 4 Final product - Izak and Zephyr (oil on board 24x18 inches)

Reuben (oil on board 14x12 inches)

If you like what I do please give me a shout or if you would like me to do some commission on the similar topic (apparently I love to paint domestic animals of any kind) don't be shy and write me a message. 

All the light in your hearts (especially these days in winter) wishes you Petr...

Setting up a still life in my studio

In  this December right after me moving in to my new place I decided in order to get better finally paint from life. And since I'm very, very shy person and in England and when it's winter - it's really bad idea to go out to paint so I made a decision to start small - to set up a basic still life in my apartment.

"what I want to paint?" I asked myself. As Richard Schmid advocates it should be something that excites you....

You wouldn't believe this but squashes excite me a lot - especially when I make a delicious meals out of them (my favourite is hokkaido squash pancake with some yogurt and strawberries on top) but that's maybe for a different kind of blog or maybe not - write my an enquiry and I'll send you an email with a recipe. My another precious thing in my life is a good coffee and I really dig my moka maker (it's a miraculous tool indeed!). So I gathered them all together and result is seen on the pictures below.

Few mistakes were made - I set up my first still life for a natural daylight which made me a person under a pressure - since I don't have northlight window, shades and lighting were moving so fast so it was kind of a hustle. And a second mistake was that I hadn't made myself a coffee before this sitting so it was twice as demanding to make a picture without a proper level of caffeine because my moka maker was in capture...

Anyhow you can see the result here:

Quicky! - light's coming!

It's been set up pretty quickly - I knew what I wanted - Squashed dance :-D

"Squashed dance around moka" (oil on canvas panel 6x8 inch)

Another tiger painting

Since I love wildlife kind of painting I'd decided before I moved out from my old place that I would try my first painting with tonal underpainting. Up till then I was used to work just with pencil drawings before I started with full rendering with oils.

This tonal approach is the basic and classic way to start a painting. It's a great way to guide your painting process because it includes an information about values (how dark or light things are) as well along with drawing of course. And it's more fun as well because you start with paint right away (in this case I used raw umber for underpainting).

Two major stages are shown down below. In reference picture there were two person behind the tiger and I found them quite disrupting in the composition so I had to edited a picture which effected a lightning of the scene. I hope that I somehow managed to keep the lightning believable....

tonal underpainting in the beginning stage (raw umber)

Final product called "Chill"

French stranger at the table

Sometimes when you're looking for a topic for your paper/canvas/board/forehead or whatever surface you don't seem to find something that would bring you towards that surface to begin putting some colours in it. 

I've been always fascinated with people and the expressions of theirs. Especially strangers whom you don't know and you quite have to guess what's their purpose in this world (is he/she father/mother, good businessman?, artist?, homeless? person who's recently survived a hard struggle?). One just wonders. And that's one of the reasons why I like to travel - I can see a different nature of people all around the globe (besides a nice landscape, buildings, beaches etc...)

back in August when I was in south France, Nice, Riviera of France with my friend, we went in one evening to have some delicious French wine. Right next to us was this person - A middle age man who had discussion with some lovely woman. Something in this guy was just striking. So I made a secret pictures from our table to have some reference shoots for my future use. And I've use it when I got back from my holiday to make this picture called "Will she give me any sugar?" That's what I thought he was most likely thinking (that woman was beautiful!) 

Some of my secret photoshoots (Yea sometimes you have to be like an agent -  but it pays of because the expressions of the people are more natural - storytelling right?). You can buy this work via link down below. 

Here's the final product on A4 watercolour paper painted with Gouache. 

 "Will she give me any sugar?" (Gouache on watercolour paper A4)

http://www.dailypaintworks.com/buy/auction/639227