10 octobre 2008
Old Airplane Watercolor - I've finally delivered it
Today was a nice day, I finally get away from my laziness and visited my teacher José Brizuela in my old school "Colegio Don Bosco".
I remember most of my teachers, but from the time I was in high school (those critic years), José Brizuela was my favorite teacher. I met him when I was studying 7th grade, he taught me a class related to society, geography and other stuff. Then in my second year in high school I found myself in one of his classes... psychology.
Psychology was a really cool class, because was aimed to teach the students things related to sexuality and other stuff, and was one of the very few classes that I can remember in my whole life in which all the students (only boys*) were very focused and paid close attention in class. If the topics weren't interesting enough, the teacher Brizuela taught the class in a very funny and true (no things to hide, close to reality) way.
In many of my interactions with him, I found myself getting late to class and waiting outside the classroom, thinking in what excuse I could use to give him. Then he went outside to ask me why I was late, and most of the times I replied that just a couple of blocks from the school, I found a traffic jam.
Another thing that I remember with nostalgic was how he called me in those times. Brizuela used to invent a lot of nicknames for the students, and all were very funny, all the class laughed a lot any time he called one of my classmates for his nickname. And for me, he used to call me "Caso Roswell" (you know the ET) and when I was late he said "Ok, let me know something, you have a spaceship and come from another galaxy, so how do you end up in a traffic jam? .... :)) -all the class laughing- c'mon let's get inside the classroom :) "
Ok, let's see the watercolor!
FIGURE 1 Old plane watercolor.
There is not much to said about this watercolor that I haven't said before in my previous posts related to painting in watercolor, but let me tell you some tips:
- I tried to put a lot of detail in the "tail" of the airplane, so I can achieve a dot texture (steady hand is needed!)
- there is some houses in the background so I painted them very slightly (mix the watercolors with more water to paint these houses). In this way you can add some depth to the picture, because things located far away will look less detailed
- I used a chinese ink pen to draw the contour of the airplane and in this way highlight it more
So that's it. Merci por la lecture :)
* Nowadays like when I was in high school, The Colegio Don Bosco it's a only boys school. So in the context of this story, we could talk more freely in class about certain topics like sexuality, because there is no girls in the classroom.
** I did this airplane watercolor in 2006, and I did it specially for my teacher Brizuela, for some reason until this very day (Oct 09, 2008) I've finally delivered it. Better late than never.
18 août 2008
Tony Hawk vs. Homer Simpson - Watercolor
It's October 2004 and my brother Leonardo is about to have his birthday. I found myself thinking what could I give him for his birthday, because I didn't have money (I wasn't working at that time, I was still in the university at full time) to buy any gifts.
I could tell you a lot about my brother Leo and our adventures when we were children, but in a brief Leo and I, were like partners in crime, like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, like Duck Dodgers and Porky Pig space cadet, like more than brothers...friends.
So I have to put a effort myself and try to give him a cool gift. So I started to search what he enjoyed the most and found that he liked a lot playing skateboarding (nowadays he stills enjoy a lot that sport). So I came with the idea of make a drawing related to skateboarding.
The inspiration for the drawing was not going well, but all the sudden I found a picture in the newspaper in which appeared Tony Hawk and Homer Simpson, doing some air duel... that was what I was looking for!!
I decided to paint a watercolor inspired on the picture. (FIGURE 1)
FIGURE 1 Tony Hawk vs. Homer Simpson
About this watercolor, I think the sky and the bright colors made this painting a cool one, but let me share some tips and thoughts:
- to make the sky, you could follow the same trick that I published before in my Senna river watercolor. This time the problem is the two guys in the air, to work around this you can damp the paper carefully without touching the contours of the characters or you can use a masking fluid to cover the characters and in that way you can paint the sky freely.
- Nowadays, the Simpsons and almost most of the animated series in TV use very bright colors, so pick the brightest colors in your palette.
- Remember in watercolor is the opposite of painting with oil or acrylics, so start painting the light colors first. Paint first the yellow skin of the two characters, then you can follow with painting the red, blue or green areas. Finally paint the dark gray or black areas.
- For the Homer Simpson skateboard, I tried to make the skateboard look like damaged (like my brother's skateboard), so I picked some sandpaper and did some scratches, I also made some "thin" black strokes.
- To make the characters contrast more (and look like they do in TV) pick a chinese ink pen and draw carefully the contours or outer strokes of the two characters. I used a chinese ink pen, size "8" for doing the strokes.
Finally I think that from all of the gifts (mostly chocolates, food and only saying "Hey Leo, Happy Birthday") that I've given to my brother, this watercolor has been the coolest one!
29 juin 2008
mouse doing his homework (I'm back!)
This painting reminds me of the time when I used to give drawings and paintings to girls just to impress them and maybe get a date :) fortunately those times have passed away and now I know a bit more of how to conquer girls and not get too serious (yes, give some flowers or drawings to a girl that you just met some days ago it's not a good idea) too soon.
About the painting, it's done with watercolors and consist of a mouse doing his homework (here in El Salvador, we call this type of homework "planas" and basically consist of repeat over and over again a symbol or character just to make your writing better).
In the painting I remember that I tried to make the mouse wear some "cool jeans" and that was the focus in my painting. And what makes some cool jeans? well I think that maybe the jeans should look a little bit old and scratched, so to make the effect believable I did the following:
- Grab some cool brush
- Prepare the blue of the jeans (maybe a mix of phthalo blue with cobalt blue)
- Fill the brush with the blue color that you just created
- This is the important trick, make sure that the brush just get slightly filled with blue, just remove the excess of blue maybe with a napkin paper.
- Make a few brush strokes, you'll notice that the stroke is kind of "dry" and it leaves some blank spaces interlaced with blue.
Here is the final drawing: (FIGURE 1)
FIGURE 1 A mouse doing his "planas".
See ya soon! :)
16 mars 2008
Senna river watercolor
I think I did this watercolor three years ago (when I still used to paint watercolor paintings) for a friend. I take inspiration from a picture of the Senna and at the end I was really happy because the result was better than I expected; if you've painted with watercolors before, you know that is really a hard technique to master, just like is very quick to get nice results, also you really need to have a plan before put the brush on the paper, because once you've made the stroke you have sometimes to react very quickly.
Let me share some tips of this painting with you:
- For the clouds I dampen the paper slightly (only where the clouds are supposed to be) with some clean water and then with a nice hue of blue (phthalo blue) I painted the sky leaving some blank spaces for the clouds. Take some towel paper or napkin paper if you notice that the blue is spreading too much.
- For the trees and plants I used a "sea sponge" (one of my favorite painting tools) and starting from the lightest color (yellow), I made some sponge prints on the paper.
- For the water I used some layers of painting. The first layers are very transparent and then the successive ones are more opaque, so that means that you have to use less water at the time of mixing the watercolors. At this time take advantage and while the paint in the river border (just next to the wall) is still damp take some earth hues and paint slightly on the border, use this same technique for the boat border.
- For the boat waves use some sandpaper. Use it carefully and slightly.
Here is the painting:
Finally I wish I could have some free time, lately I have a lot of things to do regarding the University, the work, etc. So is since a while that I don't paint but in the near future if God gives me life, I'm going to paint again. I remember that times when I used to paint, I felt very spontaneous and happy!
See ya later and as always thanks for reading :)