Watercolor with an Eye for Design

Watercolor with an Eye for Design with Ratindra Das

In this multiday workshop, Ratindra will focus on design in watercolor. He will share his deliberate, analytical, and intuitive approach to painting. His goal will be to stimulate student's creativity through the "thinking process". He will host demos and lectures in the mornings, emphasizing specific elements of painting. Ratindra will specifically address landscape painting, rather than portraits, etc. Topics covered will include: Exploring shapes and their relationships and placement on paper, using drawings and photographs in a creative way, extracting essential shapes from reference materials, and placing these in an orderly manner on paper. As well, Ratindra will touch on concepts such as lights and darks (values), the difference between "Nature's Light" and "Artist's Light", conceptual and ambiguous lights, value relationship with colors, color in design, how a color dominance (warm or cool) can achieve unity in a painting, and tertiary colors and their effects in painting.

***Watercolor West and Brea Gallery Members are eligible for a $50 discount on this class. To register using your membership, you must call the Gallery at (714) 990-7731 to register over the phone.

Required Supply List:

Paper: 4 full sheets of 140 lb. cold press Arches watercolor paper. Gatorboard, 1/8" thick markerboard, or Plexiglass to support your paper.

Recommedned Palettes: O'Hara box, Frank Webb palette, Robert Wood Palette, John Pike palette, or Mijello folding palette.

Brushes: 1" and 1/2" flat brush, #10 or #12 round brushes, and a rigger or liner #6 brush.

Sketching Pencil: 6B square end, or soft woodless pencil 9B (softest you can find).

Sketching Paper: Ordinary bond copying paper, plain scratch pad, or inexpensive watercolor pad for sketching.

Miscellaneous: Large cellulose sponge, rags, terry towel, clips (bulldog spring type), wide-mouth plastic water container. Natural cosmetic sponge (sea sponge), Mr. Clean Magic eraser pad, Kleenex tissues, and paper towels.

Easel: Ratindra uses a half-size French easel. Be prepared to change the angle of your board often.

Paints: (Artist's grade only) Payne's Gray, Winsor Blue, Manganese Blue or Cerulean Blue, Cobalt Blue, French Ultramarine Blue, Viridian Green (Viridian Green Hue is not the same), Winsor or Thalo Green, Quinacridone Gold (required), Aureolin Yellow or Azo Yellow, Yellow Ochre (optional), Quinacridone Red or Permanent Red, Alizarin Crimson, Opera, Quinacridone Burnt Orange (only available from Daniel Smith), Cobalt Turquoise Light or Andrew's Turquoise.

Photographs
You may bring a few photographs for creative interpretation. The goal of the workshop is to interpret reality and not copy a photograph.

Study materials will be suggested and some advance preparation will be necessary.