Menu
Log in
Home Page

Watercolor Society of Indiana

Red Swirls - Deb Ward

In My Opinion...August 2022 by Pat Grabill

Friday, August 26, 2022 1:42 PM | Tanya Roberts (Administrator)


I recently posted an article on the WSI Facebook page that I thought you'd find interesting--and maybe useful.  It's titled "Break Out of Your Creative Rut," so I thought I'd do that--break out of my creative rut and share with you.  The article describes six ways to approach the creative process differently than before.  If you missed the article (it's not a long read) and would like to check it out, here's the link:

https://streamlinepublishing-art.activehosted.com/index.php?action=social&chash=d768f8ec110b0207ba7a209f7975fbb1.7547&s=b17c6635f9531de36619562bf2462b00

I combined two suggestions and decided to try the suggestion about painting upside down and then gridding a reference image into 16 squares.  Here's my reference image: 


And here's the image upside down:


Then I also gridded my watercolor paper into 16 squares and began to paint, one square at a time, looking only at the upside down image.  At first I thought I would just draw and shade and have only black, white, and gray--but that wasn't enough fun--so I got out my palette and brushes and decided to paint upside-down in watercolor.

I wish I could say that I created a masterpiece--but I didn't.  What I DID get from the exercise is practice in painting shapes and looking for darks and lights.  It took me several hours to complete the exercise--it's watercolor after all, and I waited for paint to dry so I wouldn't have mud.  I painted a square or two and let the paper dry.  Painted some more. Here's the upside-down result:


And here it is right-side up:


I picked a complicated photo image to do this experiment, but at least it was something I enjoyed looking at while I painted.  If I do this particular experiment again, I think I'll start with a portrait image--just the head, perhaps, and either one draw or paint that image upside down.

However, I DID print the article on which this particular blog post is based, so I still have five more "experiments" to play with--like doing an 11x14 painting using only 100 strokes.

But that's just my opinion.  Have fun.

Pat

CONNECT WITH US

CONTACT US

Watercolor Society of Indiana
4181 East 96th Street, Suite 200
Indianapolis, IN 46240 

Call/Text: 317-500-2275

Powered by Wild Apricot Membership Software