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.
Take a class with SAL – anywhere! Yesterday’s post featuring drawings by Kathe Kollwitz introduced the idea of hands as expressive elements within a drawing. I was so excited about the idea of hands doing the talking for a face in a drawing that I made a class to study expressive hands and heads, and …
“…but when they get a bit besmirched, well then they are fair game.” – Diebenkorn “I don’t go into the studio with the idea of ‘saying’ something. What I do is face the blank canvas and put a few arbitrary marks on it that start me on some sort of dialogue.” – Richard Diebenkorn In the …
Bridget Riley’s Op Art When Bridget Riley first exhibited her dizzying black and white abstracts in the 1960s, people were amazed at how the lines and shapes appeared to move and vibrate right off the canvas. It was like she was painting with electricity itself! In 1967, she introduced Seurat-inspired color applications, and her paintings …
Exercise your creativity This SAL Challenge is a vocabulary based creative challenge every day for January. Materials are artist’s choice. You can draw, paint, sew, collage, sculpt your food, anything you want. See below for today’s creative challenge. Set the timer for 20 minutes and see what happens. INCOMPREHENSIBILITIES Difficult or impossible to understand or …
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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Take a class with SAL – anywhere! Yesterday’s post featuring drawings by Kathe Kollwitz introduced the idea of hands as expressive elements within a drawing. I was so excited about the idea of hands doing the talking for a face in a drawing that I made a class to study expressive hands and heads, and …
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“…but when they get a bit besmirched, well then they are fair game.” – Diebenkorn “I don’t go into the studio with the idea of ‘saying’ something. What I do is face the blank canvas and put a few arbitrary marks on it that start me on some sort of dialogue.” – Richard Diebenkorn In the …
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