Arley II

Posted by Stephen Quirke on December 27, 2008 under Art, Uncategorized, figure, painting, watercolor, watercolour | Be the First to Comment

This is my second picture of Ethan doing an “Arley”.  I will have to look in one of his skateboard mags to see how to spell that.  I wanted to do this last night but had to try for an early night as we got up really early this morning to climb table mountain.  But as I climbed I was working out the painting strategy.  And I read Herr Reid on the way home to fix his lessons in my mind.  He suggests practicing the contour drawings on paper before starting the watercolour – which I did.

Here is the first wash.

I started with the middle value colours because I am not sure how to get these right once the darks are in.  But I did the shoe in a single dark wash which I softened with water.  Cool hey?  Now I am going for an evening surf with my boys.

I have spent the evening doing the next wash and will stick here till tomorrow.  

I am pleased with the shadow which has more life, and I like the way the shadow and the tree shadow repeat the motion of the arms.  The tree is overworked though – this is a lot of dark and I want to learn how to apply this amount of colour with sparkle.  This will be my bed-time reading.   Oh yes – Ethan tells me that the move is called an ‘Ollie’ but as his brother Calvin explained, “We are South African – therefore Arlie”  (I am not sure I understood but anyway).

Here is the final wash

 

- mmm I think the tree is quite strong – I want to do another with a l0wer value background.