Reflections Through Watercolors With Susan Tilton Pecora; Factories Of Holyoke; 206

Oh. Hi I'm Susan but Cora this week on reflection through water color we traveled to the first planned industrial city in the United States Holyoke Massachusetts. I hope you'll join me as I share with you an artist's perspective on what makes New England and its industrial passage great subject matter especially in the snowstorm reflexions through watercolor is brought to you by the members of WG Why. Set along the canals of Holyoke is where you'll find this week's subject. I just love the way the

old faded red brick mills are in such contrast to the gray blue sky. Then when you add the quiet yet almost poetic feeling of snow falling well you can almost feel the past coming alive in the present. Holyoake was considered by many to be a natural location for a planned city with its close proximity to major cities like Boston and New York. Add to that the ample water supply of the Connecticut River. It's no wonder industrialists from the eastern part of the state realized its economic potential. By the middle of the 19th century Holyoke became an industrial giant. More than 50 textile mills and close to four and a half miles of handmade canals allowed the city to thrive. Immigrants were able to find jobs and establish new lives for themselves. Today these old factories and mills are going through yet another revitalization. Entrepreneurs and artists are finding creative ways to establish themselves in Holyoke businesses like the warehouse paper city brewery and art space like Canal gallery are making their homes here.

Now in this thing I'm not looking to depict any particular mill or factory. I'm going for an overall ambience and mood to the painting and I'm going to be using lots of layers of color so I may be using my hair dryer a lot just to warn you right up front. Let's get started. I'm starting with a combination of woo blues. Now this was not a bright sunny day. It was cold. It was snowing and the wind was blowing. So using cooler colors I'm going to use throughly in blue which doesn't have you know we go a lot of warm tones to it and putting it in and letting it drip right through going around some of these pick some of these buildings but then down through others and it's going to go all round. Just here a little bit around the rooftops because the rooftops had snow.

Now this will this will teach you the next time you hear the weatherman talking about snowy cold weather and wind chills. You don't have to grab a blanket and the TV clicker. You can grab your paints or your camera and go outside and get in this weather and just it's beautiful. I just felt that this would be a real good atmospheric moody composition and something that's different that you know not everybody has Holyoke at their fingertips you know canals with big old brick factories on them and these old wrought iron fences and the bridges going across and it's such a unique layout that I thought it would be wonderful perfect backdrop for a snowstorm. Now let's see I'm watching words dripping here. I don't mind. There and there and right through. Going to keep the Snow White and some of the buildings all. Not that one. And now I think I'm going to use a little bit smaller brush this is about an inch brush

and more throughly and just a hint of cadmium red. And see how that cadmium red Grays up the color there that creates more of a stormy look to it. And I'm also using a rough paper. Now this is a very unique paper it's rough on one side and smooth on the other. So it affords me an opportunity to decide especially if I'm painting on location what the subject needs in this picture. I'm doing as you can see lots of washes and I want the colors to show up each layer so the texture of the paper just adds a little more interest to it. If I wanted something where I was using a lot of detail and wanted to do a lot of fine brush work then I'd use the other side of the paper which is much smoother. Here we go. And I'm not going to come down here I want to keep that light. But what I am going to do is hit it with a hairdryer so I'll start out and just to get this a little bit drier than it is right

now. All right now that's joy enough it's not quite totally dry but it's dry enough now. If I was on location Well for one thing I'd be getting snowed on but if I was on location and perhaps inside my car I would just lie this flat and let it dry. And if I'm painting out in bright sunshine I lie flat and just when you like the way the clouds look for you whatever you're doing looks lay it flat and it won't move. I'm using a hair dryer a lot because the paint is all moving around and I don't I want to stop and freeze it. Now we've got this layer here and a layer down here and I'm going to come in with a little more. This is another thing with this particular subject matter. I'm using a very limited palette it's going to seem like all I'm talking about is blue and red and blue and red all through this picture. Come in here and lay on some more color

and just get rid of those hard edges when I want to get rid of the hard edges. Just go in with the brush. And now I love this trick. I'm going to spray it. And spraying it sort of creates a just a kind of polka dot textured I think makes it look a little bit colder. We'll take this and pull it down. You see the polka dots. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. Another way you can get around it is by throwing salt on it. But that takes that keeps the paint wet and takes another 20 minutes for it to dry so I won't throw salt in it today. We'll let that go for a while and now I'm going to start putting the other color brown matter into the buildings. Now I'm using fairly thick paint. I'm going right into the dark cloud color that I had before and a little bit of cobalt little bit of brown matter till it gets to be a nice dark rich color.

I love the subject matter. Holyoake is just I think one of the most beautiful cities in its heyday it must have been gorgeous. I think that other people would see this as beautiful if they would go and look at it. Artists look at things in unique and hopefully enlightening or interesting way and bring it to the people and bring it to their attention. You can see how it was thriving once and the detail and the beauty that they put into these mills brick dental molding an old wrought iron. I want to say widows walks that's what you get in New England seacoast town. I mean there's a lot of beauty to it. So I thought the snow would add you know just more mystery to it and just the configuration of the buildings and the water reflecting and the old all just all the details the old iron gates bordering the canals just make for beautiful subject matter and something you need to.

Now this is still wet but I can come down here and I almost want to paint all of this with one big broad brush strokes so guess what we're getting the hair dryer again. I'll make this short and painless. OK that wasn't too bad. Now before it dries totally I'm going to come up here where I've got the tree and just scratch in. And this again I'm scratching in while a little bit of the paper is still wet not much just to give it that kind of a see feel. And I'm not too concerned with the limb coming from which tree I'll just kind of connect them all later on as they finish the painting. But what I wanted to do was make sure this was dry so I could go in with a round brush and a not so round brush and get in more of these factories and maybe even a third one. So I've got brown matter

COBOL a little bit of water lots of thick paint down here. And when you hear and hear and see how I can get that real Hardage. And go right down here for the Windows now a lot of times what happens because it was actually snowing on this day as some of the snow is collecting around the windows so the windows have a little bit of white and they're also reflective reflecting some light. So I painted in the blue of the sky. But I'm leaving that and we'll go over here. Now switch to the round brush it's easier for me to use a round brush when I want to get some of these little edges over here. And look at this you don't think of this as oh factories in the snow in the canal and blah blah blah. You just squint down and look at the big picture and just paint it all as one unit.

And what was making this separate was basically the rooftops. That was the part that I thought would be interesting in doing a painting show. The sky was very dark but murky looking. The only thing that separated the buildings was the snow sitting on the rooftops. Very moody picture. Well you'll see. Hopefully it'll be a very moody picture from down here. And then I can use a whole side of the brush I can use this brush wide like that. Or I can go just get little tiny little narrow lines if I just seize the edge of the brush come in here and go right in between the windows and right under there. And even when Now these windows are turned away from the viewer so they'd be narrower than these windows up here come down here to there. Get that a little bit narrower and then this building. I've got my sketch here. This building is getting further away in the atmosphere so I'm going to grab a little more blue paint. And I don't want really one color.

So I grab some blue or grab some water. Now a little bit as they roll in there and look at that all those. It's basically the same colors that I've got throughout this whole picture. Do you know that over here. And then as we get further down and further down I'm going right through the tree shapes right over here and then just a little bit suggestion on the rest of the city Holyoke over there and straighten up those lines. And while I'm at it when I was doing that day was the canals were frozen. Oh but you could see just the suggestion of the dark silhouettes of the factories so putting them in here putting them in here and I forgot the smokestack that was one of my favorite parts of this painting. Starting with a flat brush. About half inch wide. And just lean into the brush. Once you start going just keep

going. And then it repeated over here somewhere I can't even see it in my drawing so I'm going to leave that out till this dries a little bit more and then reflection reflection which this way suggests this and back in here see what I mean about red blue red blue red blue. And then as I get further down the canal it gets lighter and cooler until I get to the actual little bridge over here. You know right now I'm going to take trusty spray bottle and let that go and then I want to use a wet brush or a dry brush. Start with a dry brush and let it drip a little bit and then just freeze it. I'm going to try valiantly not to use the you know what. And just see if this will just spread the pain to up enough so that it's realize

they're OK. And I remember when we used the quasar round brush you could see a little bit of warm color not too much some using wrong number and a tiny bit of guess what blue. That's too blue. If you miss the color and it's too blue and you want it warmer don't keep wiping it and throwing it away. Just add more warm color to it so there are some wrong. Now see that looks a little too dark so I will add little Rossi ended to that mixture and I'm pulling it out so I started with the two blue mixture which is too dark. Went to a darker wrongdoer and now pulling that into a little bit of raw Sienna coming down here and see this is what you get with that great rough paper. I can just touch the paper lightly and get this texture while I'm at it. I'm going to take the half inch brush. Dry it off on my tail. Come up here into the snow color and do the same thing just to suggest the snow on the

rooftops and see how this rough paper. I'm just kissing the paper lightly so it's not covering up the whole thing if this was the hot press side of the paper than that paint would just go on just like painting on glass. Come over here and get it. And then another thing you can do is turn this whole thing upside down. There are e slowly and come in because this was a cloudy snowy day and I put some more paint in texture up here. I've got this color dry. This is the Sunni end. And this way It ensures that I won't get it on. So I might have gotten in on some of the rooftops there. But look if I want to pop that rooftop out right here I can go right up here. WATERCOLOR PAINTINGS much more forgiving than it gets

credit for. You know people always think oh you can't go in and rework of water colors put one layer over another and you can. That's really what how it works best. Get some color in there and then spray it and it really big over this way. And if I want. I can come in and just create some some more texture with tissue paper. This also works well for clouds if you have just one layer on. Now going to go over here this is too wet to bother with. So come over here and just start to suggest. Do I want to do that. Suggest some of the fence. You know I don't want to do that because the fence will be too dark. You don't mind if I just talk and think while I'm painting. Going to go back in. Cadmium red and there was one trailer truck left that was bright red that day really popped out. I'm going to put that in

and then go in with a little bit of dark color underneath and it really wasn't quite this bright. But I'm playing it up a little bit here. Will calm it down. And take the same brush and go in and just suggest some of the windows to try and see how fast I can do this just with the edge of the brush and under here I can get darker. Now this is a blue color over the red color going this way in this way. And what I'm doing is just getting darker because there's not I mean there's not much light hitting this picture to begin with but there's really not a lot of light under these overhangs over here. And I love the juxtaposition of this white snow against the dark buildings. When I was there I observed that the land right at the base of the canal on the factory side was reflecting a little bit in the frozen water.

Observation is key to being a painter. And the more you can observe from being there the better a painter you'll be. And I have to warn you one more time I want to go into the trees. So guess what the trusty hair dryer. OK now we're ready to go over to the left side of the painting and put in some of these trees and once again it's still snowing out so I'm using a little wrong number. And guess what. Morbleu. And I'm going to come in here and twirl the brush as I go up. Now I need a little bit more juicy paint here because of the rough texture of the paper warmer that way and this way. And just because I want to and because I could see some texture on these trees that day I'm going to go

right in but I'm not really concerned with sunlight. I'm more concerned with using the texture of the paper and scratching that in. And I think I have a long hair brush. This is a rigger or script brush. And the point of these is to carry a lot of pigment in a little tiny thin bristle so you can get these wispy lines. But if you lean down you can get a thicker line and then twirl it. I kind of lost the paint there. And I want these trees. I've thought this out I want these trees close together a little more blue in that see how the red from the factories are picking up that color and I want a little bit cooler. So these trees sort of repeat and take your eye back. And then this one further back isn't the same distance apart because that would get a little too little too.

Repetitious so I've got more space. I like depicting architecture with trees because trees are so free and natural and architecture is so kind of contrived and stiff and right angles and trees don't have a lot of sharp right angles. So this just had all those things that I like going to jump back over here just suggest the can now which is going right over the river or canal and then reflecting down here a little bit and then another thing when I back up and look at this look at how these reflections disappeared you think oh I'm so bold it's getting so dark. And there we go and put this in. And then when it lightens up as it dries it almost disappears. So I get darker here darker here and I'm going to take if I can find one a trusty watercolor pencil. See I like this color.

Not bad. And just suggest now I probably go over this with a brush. But I want to get this done quickly and look at how fast you can do it with these pencil come in here and just. And I can paint over this later I can use paint or I can take just my trusty brush and go over and put this in. If I use a thinner brush I get a little thinner and there and see how that liquefies the color right over here. And actually I want to add a little bit blacker although I do like the Prussian blue and then switch brushes don't be afraid to switch brushes in midstream. This is big enough for there but then is this air fence goes off the picture. It would get thinner. It would also get smaller through.

The proof is through the perspective here. Get smaller and go farther away from the viewer and see how I can do this. Well actually this is working pretty good I was going to say see how I lose the the paint on this and as soon as I said that it stayed. I find I have to replace the riggers quite often because after a while they just lose their spring and they don't seem to carry that much paint but this one is doing fine. So it will go back that way and then I can come back in here and I want this to show that. And we there's a little bit of water right there so paint that in and then blurted out let's see touch this up just a bit. I'm getting darker darker darker going in here. I don't want to keep that i want back through the atmosphere but up here I can kind of clean up these lines. Come in here and just suggest one room top and another rooftop get darker over here and maybe even darker than the smokestack. And there was another smoke

second I got my sketch right here which I did in the car not outside in the blizzard. Repeat this. And then there was a higher building here which kind of popped this out there's this little line of light right here on this factory and love these buildings. People came over here virtually to make a new way of life and they got it through the mills the mill sort of gave them life. And now the mill seem to be a real dying breed so I like it when you can kind of refurbish a mill and breathed life back into it and in turn it creates a life and business for the person refurbishing it. So I just have a lot of affection for for these old buildings and they're beautiful. And then back in with the water brush which is just a flat angled brush and move some of this around. And skinny brush blacks me go right up

here repeat the shape of the trees and over here because it's on the other side of the canal you don't really see the warm color warm colors come forward cool colors received So this is just I'm a silhouette of a black tree over here and I can pull some of this down. It's dark edge here. It pulls on this and then it pretty much looks like it did that day. With the exception of just one little thing it's dark it's stormy but it was snowing so we're in here. And my trusty little bottle of snow. And this is bleep proof white and they sell it under all kinds of names pro y whitewash woodwork. Basically it's watercolor paint in a jar and I test it out right here on my pallet.

See if I like the size of the snow and know I don't paint the snow in individually. And we come up here and we just naked you know. Now this will also get white paint all over your glasses all over your face. I've had some of my friends come up to me and say oh I can see the colors you were painting by what's on the front of my face when I spatter like this. And if the spotters don't look at always test it. If they look too big or you don't like the shape of them try another brush. I tend to like white brush of white brushes and white brushes round brushes but sometimes you get a little bit too big a brush or too small a brush. And there's our snow. You can tap out to put more snow where you get them darks. And then I'm going to come back over here and just suggest with some of those cool colors.

Cool colors meaning cool blues not hip colors just suggest some snow here. Shadows in the snow not roll deep shadows. And I do a little more work on this but I think you get the general idea. So the next time the weatherman says it's cold it's rainy it's going to snow out stay in and hunker down. Grab your paints and your your brushes and a couple of pieces of paper and go out and see what you can create. I'm Susan Boyle Cora and thanks for watching reflection through water colors. See you next time. For more information about this week's subject and other works of art by Susan visit us online at WG wine dot reflections through watercolor is brought to you by the members of WG view why.