Cityscapes in Watercolor: Atmosphere and Light (Online Course) Summer 2024 w/ Adrián Marmolejo

July 2 to July 30 (Tuesdays), 10:00 AM to 12:30 PM, Eastern Time

**All sessions are live and will be recorded, students do not have to be present. All recordings will be available to students for 3 months after the final session, after 3 months the recording will be deleted.

Please check your email spam/junk folder for your Zoom invite.

DEMO: https://youtu.be/V1l_kC1yopk

Course Description

This course will cover the whole process to depict cityscapes in watercolor and the mayor issues we will face during the process.

We will first focus on the preparatory drawing to work on cityscapes in watercolor. Important factors that we sometimes take for granted as composition and perspective will be analyzed, since they usually become some issues for students.

After this we will start the painting process, normally divided in two differentiated layers. This layering help us to structure our painting process avoiding overpainting our watercolors and helping us to keep them clean, fresh, and spontaneous. According to the atmosphere pursued, we will use a different palette and tonal values.

To finish, we will add some detailing like figures, vehicles and urban elements that will help it to look livable and vibrant.

During the course, different atmospheres and daytimes will be depicted: light and shadow, rainy atmospheres, dusk and dawn, nighttime and so on. We could even paint some interiors together.

Course Outline

Week 1 - light and shadow: Simple scenes and color schemes.

Week 2 - light and shadow: Complex scenes and color schemes.

Week 3 - Cloudy and rainy cityscapes.

Week 4 - Dusk and dawn atmospheres in cityscapes.

Week 5 - Night cityscapes.

Course Materials List

- Paper:

Arches 300 gsm rough imperial size paper (22x30 inches). You can of course use other branches without a doubt, but this one will be used for the demonstrations. The whole sheet will be divided into 4 pieces to paint every watercolor, giving and area of 28x38 cms or 11x15 inches approximately. You can also use blocks of similar size or bigger depending on how comfortable you feel (up to half a sheets is ok).

-Watercolors (in tube):

Main palette will be composed of: French Ultramarine Blue, Cobalt Blue, Burnt Sienna, Raw Sienna, Yellow Ochre, and Van Dyck Brown. These colors will be from Rembrandt.

Secondary palette, also from Rembrandt: Neutral Tint, Payne’s Gray, Turquoise Blue, Alizarin Crimson, Titanium White (opaque White). From Winsor & Newton I use Cadmium Orange and Cobalt Turquoise Light.

-Mops and brushes:

Smooth medium mop brush as a Petit Gris for big washes. I use a Da Vinci Cosmotop nº16 and 10. Also a synthetic brush as an Escoda Perla number 14 and 8. Squared brushes SoftAqua of Raphael of 40 and 20 mm for architectural details.

-Watercolor palette:

metallic ones work better and keep color smother longer, it is preferable that they include big mixing zones. I use an ARTIST palette with two big mixing areas, one for cool and another for warm colors.

Royal Talens also sells a very similar one.

-Other materials:

-HB (medium hard) pencil or mechanical pencil of 2mm width and a soft white eraser. A very good option is the MONO eraser of Tombow. Masking tape, water recipient and water sprayer.