John Lovett's workshop Day Four

John adds something new and interesting to his demos each day. He repeats those things we ask him to do over so we can watch again how he makes his choices.

In my first painting the sky is actually painted in tinted gouache in order to feature or highlight the transparency of the buildings in the painting. The painting is a quarter sheet of Arches 140 cold press (as are all the paintings except the following one which is an eighth sheet).

I also used gouache to make the clouds in the sky in the second painting.

I looked at my notes this evening I had written:

1. Draw minimally but carefully

2. Use dark darks in the center of interest

3. Plan the center of interest early

4. Use gouache and gesso for vignette effects

5. Start by blocking in shapes

6. Use hake brushes dry for smoothly effects

7. Shake and drip in colors you need to reinforce

8. Forget local color

9. Re-arrange objects to please your painting.

Here are my paintings for the workshop so far...I have another one in the works that is not working out so well...hmmm.

This one is almost exclusively with that "ugly" brush I mentioned last Monday evening. It's hard to get used to. But John says that half of a painting is learning how to correct things so I haven't given up yet.

John has a wonderful website with all kinds of helpful tips on how he approaches all kinds of subjects. Click here to see it.