Project #6

Sunset Silhouette - Watercolor

Welcome to The Online Art Club with Mrs. Hayes

No sign-up; Just do it!

Projects will be posted weekly, or noted otherwise.

Email me a picture of your artwork and I will post them after the due date. No personal info will be listed, only name and age. If you want to title your work, let me know.
 

Look for your picture in Photo Gallery that matches the Project # in "labels".

To view the artwork from project #5; click on Photo Gallery #5 to the left.

If you have pictures from past projects, I will still post them...

Last project was pretty intense to prepare for. I am backing off the prep work :) for this week. This project is painting a background sky with watercolors and cutting out a foreground horizon from black construction paper.

Sunset Silhouette Watercolor
due date: 10/22/12


This idea came from Discovering Great Artist by MaryAnn F. Kohl and Kim Solga (illustrated by Rebecca Van Slyke).
To view, click here.

The artist of study with this project is C.M. Russell, pg. 56 in the above mentioned book.


You will need:
watercolors or tempera paints
water in a jar
chunky paint brushes
a rag or paper towels
sheet of white paper (construction or watercolor paper)
sheet of black construction paper, same size as white
pencil and eraser
masking tape
scissors
glue



The night before the project...

Observe the night sky at dusk or sunset.

Notice the darkest colors and the lightest and where they are in comparison to the horizon. 

Do you see darker clouds by the horizon? As you look upward, do the clouds become lighter? Remember this...



On the day of the project...

Gather the colors that you observed in the sunset from the night before and use these to paint your picture.

Round-up all the supplies needed before you begin.

Consider if you want a soft graduation of your colors or a bolder line between a color change.

For that soft blending, wet the paper first, stroking a damp brush or rag across the surface; dripping wet will warp the paper more and cause drip marks in you colors.

If you want your colors to be bolder, work on a dry paper.

_______________________ 

Have a general idea of what your horizon will be like.
The darker colors will be at the horizon line. Just guess if it will be closer to 1/2 the way up or 1/3.
The black should be no more that 1/2 and no less than 1/3 for the best composition.

You may use the following for horizon ideas:

You may even be able to copy and paste these pictures, then enlarge to fit your construction paper.
If the student is not confident to draw, they could trace it onto the black paper.
Just trace the top of the land mass or object other than sky...

Painting a sunset is very easy...

Work from one side of the paper to the other side with long brush-strokes.

Keep your brush wet (not dripping) with water and color.

Before you change color, clean out your brush in the water jar.

You may need to renew your water from time to time.

I like to start from the top. I don't think it will matter with this project if you work up or down.

 

I have tried to control what video clips show up at the end of this YouTube video.
My apologies if there are offensive clips popping up. I am trying to fix that issue.


Here is the picture of the two techniques.

The dry paper is on the left.

As that is drying, start working on your foreground on the black paper.

Remember to keep it under 1/2 and over 1/3 of the page.

Use the pencil to trace how you want the top of your silhouette to look. Think of the horizon...it could be a farm with a barn, a city-scape, or trees.

Try not to be too detailed (it will be difficult to cut away), but you want to be able to tell what the outlines are.

 

In the picture above, I printed out a silhouette and taped it to my black paper.
The red line shows where I will be cutting.

Once I started cutting, I had to reposition my tape...

My picture had some fine cutting(where the arrow is pointing), so I used an Xacto knife, with my mother's permission.

If you use an Xacto, don't forget to place a cutting board underneath the paper...

When the sky is dry, fit the black cut out to the edges of the painted paper and glue it down. 

Use a thin coat of glue, make sure to get at the edges.

Viola!

Note to self...make your colors darker next time...try to get the black on without moving it too much, the wet glue smudged my paint. Dab it off, don't wipe. Look more closely at the sky next time...

Hope you are happy with your work, if not, try again! Lots of things in life take practice...

Mrs. Hayes