Bill Roger – Friday Night Guest – February 23, 2024

(Submitted by Marilyn Walsh)

Rogers advised us not to choose a photo with the horizon line in the middle.  He showed how he manipulates the photo to achieve a desired composition.  He moves objects around, eliminates others and emphasizes others.  He aims for the spirit of the scene, not a strict rendering of the photo.  He insured that the three figures were not exactly in the center of the painting. The parent and child were grouped and the other adult was closer to the edge of the painting.

His painting starts with a light sketch.  He sometimes removes some of the graphite with a kneaded eraser.

He prewets his paper with a weak raw sienna solution to show where the wet is.  Each next step needs to be thicker or have more intense colour.  Watercolour will dry lighter than what it looks like wet.

He started in the sky, moved to the bottom of the painting for his next step to avoid “blooms of colour” moving into other colours.

The sand area at the bottom was almost the darkest area in the painting, so he started with a darker wash.  He observed that sand is darker where it is walked upon and where it is wet.  It is better if the colour mixes in the water wells are not uniform when painting organic material.

Before he moved to the middle of the painting, he checked that the sky was already dry and cleaned out his water wells to give himself time to be thoughtful about the next steps.  He cautioned us not to paint and re-paint areas – just paint once for a clean look

He observed that white caps won’t be white, but reflect the colour of the sky.  They also will not be equal length or equal distance between the waves.  The glow from the sky will show closer to the viewer and not be visible near the horizon.