Monthly Archives: April 2012

Watercolour University – Studying Alvaro Castagnet

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Rex Beanland

For the last 2 weeks I’ve been studying and analyzing the DVD’s of Alvaro Castagnet and Joseph Zbukvic. These are 2 copies of Castagnet’s demos.

It was great to try these paintings. The are all about fine control of values and it’s definitely pushed me out of my comfort zone. Fortunately it’s always a great learning experience when I finally get out there.

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Watercolour Landscape Demo

Posted on April 29, 2012 by Rex Beanland

This is the painting I did in my latest teaching video. The original charming landscape is by Barbara Goodspeed. Watch the video right here.

The painting was done using just 3 colours, yellow ochre, ultramarine blue and cad red light.

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New Video Clip

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Rex Beanland

This is the charming landscape that I painted in my latest video clip. It was done using only 3 colours: ultramarine blue, yellow ochre and cad red light. The original painting is by Barbara Goodspeed. To watch the video visit the video clip page.

Shortly after uploading the clip I received this email.

“Hello Rex, have been waiting for your next lesson. Enjoy your lessons very much. Regards from Australia.”

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Forest Fantasy 2

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Rex Beanland

This is definitely a one off. Again it was an old pencil value sketch that I did a few years ago. I was just in the mood to try something different so I thought I would try to turn that value sketch into a colour study.

I like the opaque marks of cad red light and cad orange.

Forest Fantasy 2
watercolour
9 X 12

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7th Ave

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Rex Beanland

My reference for this photo was a small plein air sketch I did about 3 years ago on 7th Ave. I’ve always liked the sketch but I was never sure how to paint it. I revisited the sketch last week and I started to think that I would like to try to paint it now.

This is the first colour study. I think there are some strengths like the power lines, the figures and the composition. There are a couple of things that I would like to change for the final version. Specifically, I would like to decrease the value of the distant buildings. I think they are a little too strong. Also, I would like to change the proportion of the various buildings. I want the first building to extend nearly to the middle of the paper.

Interestingly, over the last few months I have found that I’ve lost interest in doing pure landscapes. A painting has to have people or man made structures in it to catch my attention. I still love other peoples’ landscapes but I’m just not into doing them at the moment. I also enjoy painting buildings and vehicles more than I do mountains.

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Shading A Portait 2

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Rex Beanland

This is the image that I shaded in this video clip. It’s a beautiful portrait of Emma Watson. It’s particularly interesting because of the 3 values of shading, normal on the left, dark in the middle and white paper on the right. I also did it on hot pressed watercolour paper which is wonderful to shade on.

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Basic Drawing Skills – Emma Watson

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Rex Beanland

Rex Beanland, Emma Watson, pencil, 8.5 X 11

Rex Beanland, Portrait of Emma Watson

This portrait was a lot of fun to do. It has some challenges shading-wise, with 3 areas of value. The normal skin tones on the left, the dark shadows just off centre and the white of the paper on the far right of the face. I finished it off with a black watercolour wash for the background and the gown which I think adds a nice touch, and it certainly helped speed up the process.

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