It's been awhile since the last post. We are now in the 8th week of the 10 week class I am teaching, called Painting on the Edge. This technique was used by Winslow Homer and Tony Foster. It uses very fine paper dams to separate elements of the composition along with small washes that build up to give depth and definition. A limited palette is used which ties all the elements together. For a beginning painter it is more manageable and less daunting to do a larger painting this way, working in one small area after another, no overall washes. It also works well for plein air because you can work more leisurely, since you are working in small areas and not racing to finish a wash before part of it dries out. If you are an impatient painter and tend to muddy your work by not letting washes dry before going back in again, this helps to eliminate that problem by letting you work on descrete parts of the same painting while other portions dry. This has been a challenge for my students and they have been working out of their comfort zones in regard to size and complexity. They have grown in their skills and are having fun with it. This works well with subject matter inaddition to the landscape, as you can see by the photos of some of my work above.
