Summer is over. Plein air is over. Way too soon. Bummer. But not to despair. There's always still life! Just a trip to the market and you're in business. 

Do you know that feeling, when it's summer time and you're learning to watercolor, and you're itching to go outside and paint? But it's raining! And raining and raining and raining ... Well, I do. Here are a couple of indoor watercolor efforts from those countless soggy summer days. 

Most likely I'll be painting more interiors as we plod along into winter. ​Maybe you know of a cool, colorful and laid back venue in New York City. Where they wouldn't mind an artist hanging out with watercolors for an hour or two. If you do please let me know!

This was a complicated subject and frankly I was a little intimidated by it. Since I'm relatively new to watercolor, I wondered how I could possibly preserve the tiny white flowers in the planter and the skinny little sprays of water in the fountain ... when there was a whole forest of trees standing right behind them. Well, the answer is: I didn't.

Actually I take that back, I did, a little. With negative painting. That is, instead of painting the sprays of water directly I painted everything around them and left the paper white where the sprays went. After everything dried I used a wee bit of white gouache* on top for extra oomph. However, I didn't have the patience to paint around every single itty-bitty white flower in the planter. So first I painted the foliage and let it dry. Then I laid in the flowers with gouache right on top. I even used gouache to lighten up some of the foliage in front. Hey, Homer and Sargent did this all the time. So I guess it's all right!

*(Gouache is an opaque water-based paint, so it can be used to paint light colors over dark. Unlike watercolor, which is transparent.)

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Just when I was beginning to wonder if there'd ever be another lovely, sunny day in New York City again, there were two ... in a row! Of course it's raining again. But at least there's the sweet memory of a wonderful day in Central Park with my sketching buddies. 

​Hey, guess who's in the September 2018 issue of Drawing Attention? That's the online zine of the Urban Sketchers, an international community of artists who draw on location. This "Cool Gear" piece shows that I jerry-rigged a portable easel on my rolling backpack. Simple, cheap and lightweight.

Story and photo by Mark Leibowitz, on page 40 of Drawing Attention.

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​< Hudson River Park Watercolors          All Posts          Model Boat Pond Central Park >

Haven't posted in a while, but that doesn't mean I haven't been painting. It's been a summer of study and experimentation. A time to figure out how to paint landscapes in watercolor. This summer I've been working outside and coming back home with quite a few duds. Not to worry though, because that goes with the territory when you're learning something new. 

After watching some helpful tutorials on YouTube, and getting tips from friends who know how to use this crazy medium, and working really, really hard ... I finally feel confident enough to share a couple of  sketches that I made down at Hudson River Park. One of my favorite spots in New York City. Trees for shade, lovely gardens, beautiful views. And a cool breeze off the harbor. Such a nice place to paint on a hot summer day.

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If you follow my blog you may already know that during my art school days I studied the figure, still life and landscape using oil paints. But I like to challenge myself and learn new things. So lately I've been reading up on watercolor techniques and trying them out.

Many old school watercolor books I've found are written by purists who use transparent watercolors only, and look down their noses on any use of opaque media. I get why they love the fresh, luminous look of transparent paint. But coming from oil painting makes staying in the transparent zone easier said than done. I'm used to the option of painting light over dark. And you can't do that using transparent paint. Light colors just won't show up over dark.

Nevertheless I persist. I continue practicing transparent techniques to get better. But sometimes, after I've already tried and failed, it's time to save my work ... by any means necessary! And why not. It's kind of liberating, actually. Besides, after a recent trip to the Metropolitan Museum I couldn't help noticing that many of the modern and old masters made drawings and paintings in mixed media. Watercolor with charcoal, watercolor with pastel, watercolor with opaque white, watercolor with ... you get the idea. I'm by no means a watercolor historian so I'm not sure when the cool kids got so pure. But I'll look into it and get back to you. 

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Watercolor is a gorgeous, magical medium. But until recently I never learned how to use it. Frankly I was intimidated. Why? Because I was trained in oil painting, which is an opaque medium. With oil paints if you make a mistake you can paint right over it. Or easily wipe it off and start again. That's why my adventure in water paints began with gouache, which is a kind of "starter" medium for oil painters. Gouache is opaque, and like oil paint there's wiggle room for painting over serious flubs. Whereas the transparent nature of watercolor means there's only so much "adjusting" you can do. Sure, you can lift the paint off a little. But once you've put a stroke down on paper you're pretty much stuck with it. 

And that's not all. With watercolor you need to plan where your light areas and highlights will go -- way before you even begin painting. Once you put down a dark color you can forget about painting over it with a light one. The dark colors underneath will show right through. Because hey, they're transparent, right? (Although there are a few tricks that help in recovering your lights if you do happen to forget them. Like using white gouache. Purists won't touch the stuff, but many great watercolorists did, including John Singer Sargent himself.)

So, you may ask, with all these complications, why not just stick to gouache? Well, gouache is a beautiful medium, it's true. But even so, it has somewhat of a chalky look to it. Unlike watercolor, whose transparency gives the colors a special brilliance and luminosity. And who doesn't lust after gorgeous, luminous colors? Well then.

Okay, so it was time to try out my brand new watercolor set. I brought it along last week when I met up with another artist pal in Queens. We decided to check out Flushing Meadows Corona Park, at the site of the old 1964 World's Fair. And there it was, the Unisphere! Shining brightly in the afternoon sunlight. Commissioned to celebrate the dawn of the space age and the fair's theme of "Peace Through Understanding."  What a beautiful globe and a wonderful theme. A theme that is still so significant in these contentious times. Definitely worth sketching! 

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