In my Artist Palette Profile of Poppy Balser, I shared some things I had learned from taking a class session with her. That session, which could be taken as a standalone or part of a series, focused on colors and supplies. I have continued to take her class series, which moved onto different types of demos.
Boats in Harbor
Ultimately my Indanthrone-and-TRO value study (right) ending up being roughly the same colors as the “painting” (left side)!
Poppy paints her black and white value studies at the same size as her final color paintings, which I flagrantly did not do. She feels strongly that painting at full size helps you to work our composition issues and do a real test run. I’m sure that’s true but I don’t have the patience.
For the larger version, I more-or-less emulated Poppy Balser’s main palette, using the combination of Cobalt Blue, Quin Rose, and MANS. I really like the dramatic cloud shadows I was able to get.
I did not get reliable drybrush, but I sort of fudged the water by doing some additional horizontal lines to make waves.
My masts are a bit shaky. I tried to do them with flat brushes but should probably have used a rigger. I also missed Poppy’s tip until it was too late: turn your paper sideways and do them horizontally, as it’s easier to do a horizontal line than a vertical one!
I realized too late that Poppy’s boats were a lot less silhouetted than mine – oh well! Should have caught that in the value study.
Get to Know Your Greens
Again I half-assed the value study (top/rotated), but I’m happy with the strong values in the color painting!
I used tape around my painting to create crisp edges, which Poppy intentionally does not do: she paints to the edge, which she says helps avoid problems in framing. In this case I was more concerned about sectioning off the painting than any future framing.
Poppy used her usual limited palette for her version (mostly Cobalt Blue, Hansa Yellow Medium, and Ochre Ichles Light, with a bit of Quin Rose). I used a lot more colors:
- Like Poppy, I used Cobalt Blue in the sky and Cobalt + yellow (Azo, in my case) for the main grass green.
- I created dry grass with MANS, Naples Yellow Deep, and my green mix.
- Background trees with Perylene Green and Rich Green Gold, as well as palette greens.
- Black from Indanthrone and TRO, plus palette greens.
- Muted violet in the houses and water from Perylene Red (PR178) and Indanthrone Blue, diluted.
I wouldn’t have thought to put violet in the water or the background houses but I really like the effect.
As in the first class, Poppy painted wet-on-dry and softened the edges instead of painting wet-on-wet. I did a wet-on-wet sky, but tried Poppy’s method for the field. I found it nerve-wracking to try to soften the edges in time as my paint was rapidly drying. Next time I think I would do it WOW, at least for the first layer.
I had some issues with water spots/splashes, mainly due to going too fast. Another recommendation of Poppy’s that I disregard – she suggests watching first, then painting along at your speed, instead of trying to paint along the first time. But I know if I tried to do that, I wouldn’t do anything at all.
General Thoughts
There are three classes left, continuing at a rate of one per month for the rest of the summer.
It’s funny to think that when I signed up for this series back in February, I did not yet know that I would be moving countries before the second session! With any luck (cross your fingers), I will be in more permanent housing by the end.
Although I’ve had a lot to deal with over the last month or so, and have yet to make it to a live zoom class session (I did all of these on video-on-demand after the fact), it has been pretty nice in this time have a class and a teacher telling me what to do so I don’t have to think about what to paint. Making a page of “class notes” also feels like less pressure than “doing a painting.”
It’s always hard to know how much you’re learning from a teacher when you insist on doing things your own way. But I think Poppy does a good job of balancing instruction and tips with the encouragement and expectation that you will do things differently than she does. Having tried several of her very specific methods (e.g. using flat brushes, softening edges wet-on-dry instead of doing wet-on-wet, using an extremely limited palette), I now feel pretty confident that I have more fun when I use my preferred brushes/wetness/colors. But even if I don’t quite do the class “right”, Poppy’s focus on values and composition are really helpful.