Advancing with Watercolor: "The Dog Walker" Working with Figures

THE PROJECT

In this weeks project I want to say something like “Dog Walker in Central Park” OK so we will need some dogs and a dog walker a backdrop of NYC - Understanding what I want to say makes it easier to design and structure the painting. I will take what I like about the photo, add some dogs and people and then start to think about the process...

THE DRILL

The drill focuses completely on working with figures - both human and canine. I feel it is a good warm up because then I have freedom to place the figures in poses I like and orchestrate the doggies as well. This exercise will have a bearing on a lot of the work we do in future paintings in this class -

The Photo
The view shows us some very useable architecture, a nice bridge and some strong light falling across a path. What remains is to find a good place for our central figures of dogs and dog walker. I might reshape the path a bit to allow for the main figures of Dogs and Dog Walker. Since there are no dogs in the picture we have to add them - this is where we need to do a little research and practice. I typically paint mutts but this is really painters choice...

THE DRAWING / DESIGN

I have already talked a little on how I will alter the photo to make it a simpler painting. In this project we will have the opportunity to

1 Think and orchestrate the figures and dogs as we wish

2- We will also need to separate the bridge (quite dark in the photo) from the figures. Design the lights and darks is also guided by what we want to say in out piece

3 - Think about the role and placement of the background, mid ground and foreground

THE TECHNIQUE

After some thought and a tonal study on the progression in this painting I will work much as before - light to dark keen on catching the lateral movement of the light

ADVANCING WITH WATERCOLOR - COPYRIGHT © GARY TUCKER 2022 2

THE CHALLENGE

Undoubtedly the challenge for us this week in creating believable figures that move naturally though the scene. This will be a challenge through many of this series paintings

THE SKILL

Once again we take an image and through some small changes move beyond the photo towards a more expressive painting. Along the way we learn the fundamentals of the visual language. In particular this week is how to place figures into our scenes in a natural way.