This is the lesson from last night’s watercolour class.  The goal of the lesson was to encourage the students to look at photographs (or for that matter a plein air scene they might find themselves in front of).  Rather than just copying it we’re trying to see it as just a collection of shapes that we as the artist can, and in fact, must rearrange, redesign and play with to create our own composition.

The original photo is shown.  I took the photo and created 3 quick thumbnail sketches each with a very different focus.  One concentrates on the barn as the main subject, one focuses on the mountains and the third is about the foreground.  These sketches take about 3 minutes and are done in exactly the same format as the large painting that I have planned.  In this case they are done in a 9″ X 12″ format but on a smaller scale.  For each of  these 3 thumbnails I did a quick value study using black watercolour.  If the painting works at these early stages you can be fairly confident that it will work in the larger format.

The beauty of this approach is that it offers so much information for a total out lay of time of about 15 minutes per image.  I have talked to a lot to artists of all ability levels about the use of thumbnails and some swear by them while others don’t find much value in them.  I guess it’s a case of each to their own but I know that for me they are a very important part of the painting process.  I also notice that when I use them the resulting paintings are at a much more consistent level than when I just start painting.  If anyone has any thoughts on the use of thumbnails I would love to hear it.