Watercolor Painting: A Comprehensive Approach to Mastering the Medium Read Online Free PDF

the names of every part of the scene. Like many realist artists, I am susceptible to an imperative to do justice to each subject. I could easily have gotten wrapped up in accurately rendering postures, hairstyles, body parts, and on and on, until the figures had taken on too much importance in the scene.
    The vegetation in this photograph can be described either as “a big tree that shows above the sunlit buildings” or as “a semicircle of intense medium green silhouetted against a middle-value blue,” depending upon whether the language of content or the language of form is used.
    TOM HOFFMANN, TINOCO Y PALACIOS, 2010
WATERCOLOR ON ARCHES HOT PRESS PAPER
11 × 15 INCHES (28 × 38 CM)
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    The figures in the foreground have a presence appropriate to the role they play in the big picture. Thinking abstractly allowed me to stop as soon as I saw that they had done their job.

ALVARO CASTAGNET, HARBOR BRIDGE, SYDNEY, 2008
WATERCOLOR ON PAPER
26 × 40 INCHES (66 × 102 CM)
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    The overall effect of Alvaro Castagnet’s interpretation of this everyday scene is one of stunning realism. Looking at the painting shape by shape, however, it becomes clear that he has not indulged in a duplication of photographic detail. Instead, he has selected the relatively few elements of each part of the image that are most telling, and eliminated all the rest. Having learned what not to paint, the artist makes his statement without hesitation.

    Imagine that the amount of information we choose to put into apainting exists on a scale—with “way too much” on one side and “not nearly enough” on the other. If you were to place your failed pictures on one side or the other, which way would the scale tip? I’m guessing the “too much” side would drop fast. If so, you are in the great majority. If not, I salute you. It is easier to add to a watercolor painting than to take strokes away.
    Why are we so inclined to overload our pictures? Again and again I hear students say, “I want to keep it simple, but I always end up putting in too much detail.” The inner voices that encourage us to keep adding more information are very convincing. Even if you are sure that the paintings you want to make are bold interpretations of just the essential aspects of your subject, you may still be prone to overpainting.
    In the early stages of learning about a new subject, we are susceptible to the assumption that if thepainting in progress doesn’t feel quite right, it must need something more. Having not yet internalized the basic structure of the image, we look to the photo or the scene to see if there is something we’ve left out. And, of course, there always is. When it still seems wrong, we find another bit to add, and in this way we keep cramming in more and more information, when the real problem may well be that we already have too much.
    Whether we set up before a plein air subject or a still life, or work from photos, we are faced with a nearly infinite amount of visual information. This is why is it so important, at the beginning of the painting process, to ask yourself: How can I simplify the source material?
    The human eye can register wonderfully subtle variations in color and value, and it is a real pleasure to indulge this ability, but remember, it can be a separate activity from painting. We are not obliged to put all that information into the picture. Ironically, our job as realist painters most often is to edit out the majority of what we can perceive.
    Some information is essential, but most of it is optional. Discovering which is which is largely a matter of getting out of your own way. For example, my first impulse as a painter is to record everything. It feels like it’s my job to do justice to each separate bit of the scene by including as much information as I can observe. I am supposed to do it. I would need a note from the authorities not to. And yet, the paintings that result from that kind of attention do not appeal to