Part Five How to Paint the Background in Still Life Study Using Digital Watercolours

 

This study is taking so long to finish and blog about. I am learning a lot though, particularly about how Barbara uses high contrast values of light and dark to add drama and shape to this painting. All the rounded shapes contrast with the square and rectangular shapes she uses in repetition. Even the colours she uses; blue and orange are opposites on the colour wheel, as well as being cool and warm in colour temperature.   

 

I really love the way she balances all the elements compositionally, so our eyes follow the path through the painting comfortably. There is probably some fancy artistic phrase for what I just said; the word that comes to mind is harmony. Despite all the disparaty, there is a harmonious balance to be found.

 

I am using a combination of digital watercolours (DWC), Watercolours (WC) and wet variants of airbrushes. A little bit of Glow brush was used in the purple background to get an underneath colour to show through more. I'm not happy with the curtains and the wall though. Need to develop better variants. I know Skip Allen has some I could use, but I am trying to do this with varying the Corel Painter 11 default brushes only. I dried the watercolour and digital watercolour layers and used a bit of Diffusion and Confusion from the Distortion Brush category. If you change the Confusion Brush Stroke Type to Multiple in the General Brush Controls menu to get one  I call "Wet Confusion," which works well for giving a bit of a wet blurry look.

 

Here is where I am at today with this study. This may not be the end of doing those curtains...