Learning From A Mentor

Watercolor Painting by Dennis Pendleton. I have been following the work of Alvaro Castagnet for several years and I decided to recreate one of his paintings to see how much I could learn. I found myself studying several different things so I will discuss them in no particular order. Alvaro's passion for painting is obvious in all his work. He was quoted for saying "If I am not sure the painting is working I just start painting faster." That statement not only shows a lot of confidence, it also indicates how much he enjoys the process. In his books he talks about how you can understand all the different painting techniques but they must be subordinate to the fact that you must paint from the heart.

The first thing I studied is how often he creates high value contrast by using rich darks, including black, next to his lightest values, including unpainted white paper. In this painting you can see how the waiters jacket, the mans cap, and the four faces are all surrounded by the darkest values. This high value contrast directs the viewers eye to what the artist considers the most important.

Next I studied how he uses the dry brush technique. This is where you load the brush with paint and very little water then drag it over the textured watercolor paper. When done correctly, the brush skips leaving bits of unpainted paper or another color showing through the brush stroke. This takes practice and the effects are worth it. You can see this technique in several places especially in the ceiling and the chandelier. Dry brush is a way of creating texture and keeping a painting loose.

Finally, I was interested in how each of the faces was full of personality with only a minimal use of detail. This was accomplished with the use of shadow shapes an color temperature. You can see how the shadow shapes created by the light from the chandelier explain the features. For example, rather than painting a nose, paint the shadows around the nose. For color temperature, the faces are predominately warm colors with cool accents. For example, the man wearing the cap has a warm complexion and there is a shot of cool blue that indicates his five o'clock shadow. Recreating a painting by a favorite artist is a great learning experience and I recommend it highly.

I am off to France tomorrow, February 9th, to teach a workshop so there will not be any Sunday emails for a couple weeks and when I return I will have new paintings and new ideas. Happy Painting! Dennis Pendleton