Creative Catalyst Productions
Learn to paint landscapes that make a statement. Follow watercolor expert Dale Laitinen on a quest to capture a sense of the monumental. In this DVD workshop, you use bold color to create drama as you paint the great granite cliffs of Yosemite. Learn to see the landscape like an artist. You learn to take photos that maximize the glory of the mountains and modify your sketch to highlight features in the granite. You balance stable horizontal planes with energetic diagonals, and translate the lines into strong shapes in your watercolor. Dale describes painting as a battle of the edges. You contrast hard and soft lines for variety, and learn techniques for creating lost-and-found edges that keep viewers curious. Dale teaches you to inject emotion with daring color choices and maintain transparency as you layer. As you move from broad strokes on the cliff to points of light in the trees, you learn to make each element say exactly what you feel.
Comments
Selected Scenes From Our Catalog
1
THE LANGUAGE OF LANDSCAPE IN WATERCOLOR
A Film Review by Jim Salchak
Creative Catalyst Productions has just released an art instruction film featuring artist Dale Laitinen painting a landscape in watercolor. Those of us that have had the fortunate experience of attending his workshops know that he is an outstanding artist and teacher and this really comes across in this film.
In this film Dale is painting the great cliffs of the Yosemite Valley as seen from Cathedral Beach on the Merced River. Dale is working in his studio from a photo and sketch he made on location. Dale explains as he draws a new sketch with ink that he is minimizing the foreground and emphasizing the granite cliffs to increase the sense of the monumental. While drawing he talks about his design decisions and the relationship of the abstract shapes that he is forming with his ink lines. This drawing is his road map for the painting.
He then draws his design with pencil on to a full sheet of 300 pound rough watercolor paper. He draws just enough to define the major shapes leaving room for creative decisions as the painting progresses. He reviews the colors on his palette and his choice of brushes, which are large flats and two small rounds.
He starts by thoroughly wetting the entire sheet and placing a warm under painting over portions of the sky, the cliffs and tree masses. A few stokes of blue and green completes the sky and he puts color on the cliffs, trees and river establishing the initial light values. Dale's painting process is to put one color down and then charge in other colors thus mixing the color on the page.
When the paper is dry Dale proceeds to establish the big mid value shapes charging in warm colors into cool washes, working on tree and foliage masses and the river reflections, always considering hard and soft edges. He contiues adding smaller dark shapes linking areas for eye flow and detail to create the character and direction of the shapes.
At this point Dale stops to see if the painting is working, looking at edges, the clarity of the focal area and anything that is bothering him. He explains what he sees as problems and proceeds to refine the painting by adding and lifting color until he declares it finished.
Throughout the painting process Dale gives a running commentary on the colors he is using and describes what he is doing to make the painting work as he envisioned. This is an excellent film that painters of all levels interested in landscapes in watercolor can learn from.
Dale is a signature member of NWS and Watercolor West, a popular workshops instructor and has juried many national watercolor exhibitions including Watercolor West.