In the past, if I had two words to describe watercolor, I might say “fresh” and “delicate.” I’d always thought of watercolor as a fairly fragile medium that shouldn’t be worked too hard. I thought of the white of the paper as the most valuable resource, and the greatest mistake would be to lose that precious white paper.
Then I saw work by Graham Nickson, of the New York Studio School. His watercolors are bold, dark, and saturated. Badass watercolors.
Graham Nickson
Shruti Ghatak studied with Graham Nickson at the New York Studio School, and you can see some of the influence in her work. She doesn’t overwork the paint, she lets it bloom and move the way it’s going to move while recording her marks for seeing, but there’s nothing delicate about it. She’s saturated with her colors and not afraid of the dark. I heard that in her watercolor class she sets up a still life and moves the objects while her students paint. I draw a changing scene with charcoal, but watercolor!? My mind was blown. The student work that I saw from that exercise was fantastic.
Shruti GhatakShruti Ghatak
Last call! Shruti’s watercolor class starts tomorrow.
Finally! I’m posting the 30SAL Finalists for January 2022! Over 4,000 30SAL Artworks posted to Padlet and Instagram In January, artists all over the globe sketched, inked, sculpted, collaged, and animated their way through our 30 Day Creative Challenge. Challenges exercised a wide array of artistic skills, including observation, composition, sequence, see & respond, vocabulary, …
Preparing for my Unconventional Portraits class this Friday night, I asked Google to show me famous portrait painters. I saw this: In a line of 27 portrait painters, 24 are white men. The exceptions are two black people, and two women. One person in the line is both black, and a woman: Amy Sherald. That …
One year ago in March, to protect our students and teachers from a new coronavirus, the Seattle Artist League moved our classes online. The virus was declared a national emergency, and we went into quarantine. We have now been in quarantine for thirteen months. Through this year, we have met each other online to draw, …
A Post-Abstract Representational Artist From Wikiart: Avigdor Arikha (April 28, 1929 – April 29, 2010) was a Romanian-born French–Israeli painter, draughtsman, printmaker, and art historian. Avigdor Arikha (originally Victor Długacz) was born to German-speaking Jewish parents in Rădăuţi, but grew up in Czernowitz in Bukovina, Romania (now in Ukraine). His family faced forced deportation in …
Badass watercolors aren’t afraid of the dark
In the past, if I had two words to describe watercolor, I might say “fresh” and “delicate.” I’d always thought of watercolor as a fairly fragile medium that shouldn’t be worked too hard. I thought of the white of the paper as the most valuable resource, and the greatest mistake would be to lose that precious white paper.
Then I saw work by Graham Nickson, of the New York Studio School. His watercolors are bold, dark, and saturated. Badass watercolors.
Shruti Ghatak studied with Graham Nickson at the New York Studio School, and you can see some of the influence in her work. She doesn’t overwork the paint, she lets it bloom and move the way it’s going to move while recording her marks for seeing, but there’s nothing delicate about it. She’s saturated with her colors and not afraid of the dark. I heard that in her watercolor class she sets up a still life and moves the objects while her students paint. I draw a changing scene with charcoal, but watercolor!? My mind was blown. The student work that I saw from that exercise was fantastic.
Last call! Shruti’s watercolor class starts tomorrow.
WATERCOLOR / Shruti Ghatak
$185. 6 Weeks. 1:30 – 4:00pm
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Preparing for my Unconventional Portraits class this Friday night, I asked Google to show me famous portrait painters. I saw this: In a line of 27 portrait painters, 24 are white men. The exceptions are two black people, and two women. One person in the line is both black, and a woman: Amy Sherald. That …
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