Study: coastal water built on paper tooth, not on white paint
Homer's coastal watercolour achieves sparkling surf with no opaque white at all.
Teal · wet-on-dry
· Pushing
100 min · 8′
Study copies
Copy work from Turner, Sargent, Hiroshige and Homer, then the same discipline turned on your own material — a hundred-square wash chart, a tree silhouette series, one street under three lights.
300 gsm Dry
100 min · 8′
Study: rain as line, and the discipline of one direction
Hiroshige's rain is one of the most analysed passages in woodblock printing, and its effect depends on an almost mechanical discipline: every line the same angle, every line a different length, and a flat mid-value underneath that carries the atmosphere so the lines do not have to..
Neutral · linear
· Working
80 min · 8′
Study: building a figure from shadow shapes alone
The most transferable thing about Sargent's watercolours is not the brushwork.
Violet · wet-on-dry
· Pushing
75 min · 8′
Study: one hundred wash squares, and what they teach you
A hundred-square chart takes about two hours and it changes how you mix colour permanently.
Neutral · chart
· First sheet
120 min · 8′
Study: Turner's sky and the price of one reserved white
Turner's skies look like they were made by adding light.
Cerulean · wet-in-wet
· Pushing
90 min · 9′