JOSHUA ELEK: WATERCOLORS

Category: Studies

  • Glitter War: Studies

    Glitter War: Studies

    My Brother asked me to paint a picture for his daughter like the illustrations I did recently. I’m pretty intimidated to paint something for him to be honest, because he is such a talented and accomplished artist. (Did I mention he’s the lead VFX artist for Epic’s Fortnite?) Anyway, I took him up on it […]

  • Dairy Farm: #1.1-3.4

    Dairy Farm: #1.1-3.4

    Ok, I’m interested in painting the Dairy Farm that I found yesterday. The problem is, I hate the paintings I did yesterday, and the photo I took for future reference is pretty awful – because the fence cuts right through the subject. I try to take photos quickly when I start because I want to […]

  • Saturation Notation, Tree Technique, Atmosphere, and Perspective

    Saturation Notation, Tree Technique, Atmosphere, and Perspective

    There are two big things I’m consistently disappointed in when I look at my landscapes: trees and atmosphere. Today, I set out to practice these. I grabbed some scrap paper (A.K.A. the back of a failed painting). I painted a very simple horizon and sky. The goal here was two-fold: practice painting atmosphere, and give […]

  • Nimisilla Sunset Recipe

    Nimisilla Sunset Recipe

    I think a good idea is to think of a painting in terms of a recipe. You need to add the right ingredients at the right time with the right motions in order to get the right end result. With that in mind, I took the lessons I learned from my practice sessions, and tried […]

  • Nimisilla Sunset Practice

    Nimisilla Sunset Practice

    I played with the Nimisilla painting a lot today. I took a bunch of failed paintings, and quartered them on the back with masking tape. In each quadrant I tried a study of the painting to “solve the problems” as Rick Surowicz puts it. But you can’t solve problems until you identify them. Here are […]

  • Nimisilla Sunset: #2

    Nimisilla Sunset: #2

    This is a pre-test for a painting I want to do of a scene in my memory from last week when I went fishing with my friend Babs. Babs and I have been good friends for over 20 years now. That’s a weird thing for me to say because in my mind, I’m not much […]

  • WAL Hand Plane: #1

    WAL Hand Plane: #1

    I wanted some more practice with glazing and realistic painting. This hand plane seemed like a good subject because it’s a simple shape and allows an opportunity to practice getting a bit of the luminescence that comes with glazing, but it’s still an interesting subject. (And, I love hand planes.) I started by putting three […]

  • Pigment Tests: #1

    Pigment Tests: #1

    Ron Hazell’s book recommended a pretty simple pigment test, which I have created here. I used the majority of the pigments I own, but did not use Lapis Lazuli Genuine, Titanium White, or Neutral Tint. The idea is to draw one big black vertical line with a marker, then paint horizontal lines of each pigment […]

  • Study – Water: #4

    Study – Water: #4

    Tonight I tried to get a bit closer to the water to try to define the shapes of the ripples a little more. I see a lot here that I like. Primarily the dip in the third wave up on the left. Compositionally, that wave should be more to the right and I should have […]

  • Study – Water: #3

    Study – Water: #3

    Still doing too much on the water. There is something about the composition that I like on this one. I really wanted to try to paint perspective in the clouds, but the shadows aren’t flat enough at the horizon. I think on the next go round, I’ll simplify the shapes and paint them almost like […]

  • Study – Water: #2

    Study – Water: #2

    This is only half of the exercise for this painting. I started adding objects into the water just to test how to paint the reflections. (I should also note, this is painted on the reverse of Study-Water: 1. I like to use both sides of the paper when I’m experimenting/learning in order to save paper.) […]

  • Rocks in Stream: #1

    Rocks in Stream: #1

    For this painting, I wanted to try to capture the shine that can be seen on wet rocks, and the glare on ripples of water. I found a photo online that captured these elements, and tried to paint that photo. I didn’t end up capturing the photo as well as I would have liked, and this […]

  • Study – Water: #1

    Study – Water: #1

    I watched a video by Ron Hazel on how to paint rippled water, and wanted to try it out.  I have also wanted to experiment with a cloud technique I saw in a video by Umberto Rossini. The two styles don’t mesh well together, but that’s ok, this is a lesson. (I have already started […]

  • Study – Rocks & Trees: #1

    Study – Rocks & Trees: #1

    I think I learned more tonight doing these little studies than I have in a long time.  First, I wanted to test blooms. I found that I need the pigment to be much more dry than I previously thought to get the effect I’m after with blooms. I want the pigment to lift from the […]

  • Leaf: #4

    Leaf: #4

    I found a nice red leaf in the park yesterday. The snow is starting to fall, so I might have trouble finding leaves soon. I should have a few more tries though before they all turn brown. This one stood at an odd angle on the paper, which made the shadow difficult for me. I […]

  • Ryan Zion: #1

    Ryan Zion: #1

    So they don’t all end up working out the way I want. I really like the composition in this, which is thanks to Ryan Battles. (I didn’t do this photograph justice here, but I gave it a good shot.) Last night I watched some show about Renoir and Monet. And it got me interested in experimenting […]

  • Leaf: #3

    Leaf: #3

      So, today I went in search of a leaf with a little more color. Maybe it’s too late, I didn’t find many maple leafs in my front yard with much color left, so I resorted to one that had at least a little bit of green left. Sketching this one was difficult because the […]

  • Leaf: #2

    Leaf: #2
  • Leaf: #1

    Leaf: #1

    I wanted to try something photorealistic tonight. Since it’s fall, I figured I’d try a leaf. I grabbed this one from the driveway because it was the first whole leaf I saw. I started by painting the shadow in moonglow. Then I painted the stem since it was darkest I figured I could mess with color […]

  • Pumpkin Spice Water Color

    Pumpkin Spice Water Color