EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT WATERCOLOR

 These are the only three books I ever found useful!

https://www.abebooks.com/9780004125237/Alwyn-Crawshaws-Watercolour-Painting-Course-0004125231/plp

https://www.abebooks.com/9780823029938/Making-Color-Sing-Practical-Lessons-082302993X/plp

https://www.abebooks.com/9780395205488/Nicolaides-Natural-Way-Draw-Working-0395205484/plp

I found that the most important thing of all was to learn how to draw from life with a pencil. If you can do that, watercolor really just becomes your chosen medium. I always gravitated towards watercolor because of its portability. It is definitiely not the easiest medium, in fact it is probably the most difficult because you really have limited options to correct things. Once the water dries, you can "kind of" fix things but it's certainly not like oil where you can scrub and redo big areas.

 

The other big thing I learned after a long time is to basically go in with really strong values. So much watercolor I see people really "pussyfoot around" with really weak values and it shows up in the painting.

 

Don't use a tube black! Mix your own black (I have a secret recipe) and use that as your base. After a while you can figure out how to modify your homemade black to be any color you want. The stuff that comes out of a tube is always very weak.

 

Be aggressive and don't be afraid to fail. If you are painting to impress other people you might be at it a while before you actually come up with something that can go in a frame.

 

The greatest watercolor painter of all was Andrew Wyeth. You can learn a lot about watercolor just by studying his work. Also worth looking at are John Singer Sargent and Winslow Homer. Sargent's color schemes in particular are hard to fathom. Homer managed to capture both Bermuda and the backwoods of Maine with equal ease and that is a difficult thing to do.

 

 

 

THE BRONCOS GOT ROBBED

 

After watching that Denver/Indianapolis game last night, I am starting to think that the Broncos got robbed big time on that trade. Could it be that the Seahawk management (Carroll, Schneider) had it figured that Russell Wilson, for all his accolades and accomplishments, was fading and that it was time to cash in? It sure looks like it and it came at a time when they are bring in a whole crew of young guys again just like they did in 2010 and 2011. 

 

For a quarterback that has a QB rating of 82 so far this year (which is not a good number), the Seahawks got the following:

 

Drew Lock – backup to Geno Smith, who has a rating this year of 108

 

Shelby Harris – 31 year old DE

 

Noah Fant – reasonably productive TE (10 receptions and 1 TD in four games), first round pick in 2019

 

First round pick in 2022 and 2023 drafts

 

Second round pick in 2022 and 2023 drafts

 

The more the Broncos with Wilson at the helm suck and continue to do so, the better this deal looks. Some of that will depend on the result of the draft picks, but all of that for what we’ve seen Wilson do so far this year? And it isn’t improving. It is getting worse.

 WHAT? THE SEAHAWKS BEAT THE BRONCOS?

Some random thoughts on the Seahawks/Broncos game yesterday which the Seahawks won 17-16.

 

* If the Seahawks wind up going 1-16 this year, this game alone will make it one of the best seasons in franchise history. I’m still laughing at the idea that Wilson thinks he can get a whole bunch more rings with the outfit he’s with now. The Broncos are basically the Seattle Mariners of the NFL. A hard core commitment to mediocrity on the part of management, fueled by a complete lack of interest in a winning tradition. 

 

* Russell who? This guy isn’t the same QB he was when he was 23. He used to be able to scramble when he got in trouble and no one could catch him. Someone would chase him and he’d just flat out outrun them. He can’t do that any more. He doesn’t have the same speed he had when he was a kid. He’s also way more protective of himself physically than he was ten years ago. If you’ve been watching this guy over the years you will have seen him slow down and try to become a pocket passer. He’s too short to do that. My guess at the moment is that Pete Carroll and John Schneider knew this and figured it was time to fleece the Broncos the same way they did the year they got Earl Thomas for nothing. Russell Wilson is not a stand up, Tom Brady/Peyton Manning style “pocket passer”. I wish him all the best but I don’t see him succeeding with this outfit.

 

* The Denver coach is a rookie. He had no idea what he was doing late in the game. It’s just basic time management. You’re supposed use your timeouts when you need to get down in to field goal range with under a minute and he didn’t do it. It was painful to watch such an obvious screw up. And you then wind up 4th and 5, you’ve got Russell (who?) and you don’t give him a shot at advancing the ball EIGHT YARDS? 24 FEET? That’s a complete dumbass move.

 

* Seattle football has some good days ahead. This team looks a lot like the 2011 team which was a bunch of young guys that didn’t quite know how to play together. But eventually they figured it out. If I were running the team I’d tank the season and look to draft one of the top tier Qbs. C.J. Stroud is going to be a big star in a couple of years and the Seahawks could get him.

I.AM.BACK.

I was away such a long time. Back in the 2000's (the ots, as I heard the other day) I spent a lot of my free time painting. I was needing to heal from some very serious professional difficulties and art was the way I recovered from it. It was also the fuel for my eventual redemption. 

It's been ten years since I picked up any kind of art making stuff. The 2010's for me were all about other things. Getting our kids through high school and up, up, and away to college and beyond. I built a whole side career as a local musician. Dealing with the infirmity and eventual passing of my beloved mother. Music hasn't run its course with me but I'm well over the hump of learning the basics of the craft.

Now I'm on the cusp of getting out of the work for pay world. I'm soon going to become a pensioner, a semi-retired gentleman of leisure. I'd long planned on a return to making art and doing it for real, with full force, actually spending the time required to do something serious. This is where I'm starting.

So the last couple of months have been largely experiments, getting my technique back, hauling out a vast pile of old things I've made and going through them, putting stuff up for sale, making plans for this activity as a commercial enterprise. I'm close to 60 and I just hope the fates grant me a good 20 to 25 years before I start to shut down physically. Who knows how much time is left.

But I do know this. I'm back and this time, I'll be here until the end of the show.

Vince Guaraldi
Marian McPartland
Dave Brubeck

This one is called "Fingertips" and it is a watercolor potrait of the Motown Miracle himself, Stevie Wonder.

This is "Little Stevie", or as we all know and love him, Stevie Wonder.

Peace Poet

After a rather iconic image of the late, great John Lennon.

By the way, I highly recommend "The Beatles" by Bob Spitz. It tells the whole story and it reads like a novel. *****