The Interaction of Watercolor with Peggy Roalf

This class will be offered again soon. Please email peggyroalf@gmail.com for info

Six 2-hour sessions, in person, location TBA

If you’ve tried to master transparent watercolor, and it left you breathless, this course is for you. Using seven tubes of paint, the secrets of this versatile medium will be revealed. You’ll discover the fun of fearlessly allowing the rogue nature of watercolor to work for you, in stages that lead to a visual understanding of the interaction of color.

It’s retinal, not theoretical!

Week One: Mix bright and dark colors across the spectrum, making a free-form color chart
Week Two: Mix colorful blacks and grays, creating solid, dimensional forms, both from observation and imagination
Week Three: Create a still life based on a contemporary masterwork
Week Four: Create a sculptural head based on a photo of a modern masterwork
Week Five: Create a personal project: a still -life, a tree, or a figure, from observation or imagination
Week Six: Continuation of Week Five; student work slideshow

Each session will begin with a brief slideshow of works that embody core ideas about the interaction of color, composition, and form. 

Painting with a limited palette of primary colors plus one, students will develop a foundational understanding of the interaction of color from observation and experience. 

Materials
If you have questions about materials, please email me: peggyroalfAgmail.com• Paint: The best value: primary color mixing sets by Daniel Smith and QoR Modern Watercolor [about $30. for six 5 ml tubes]. You can use paints you have on hand provided they are like the colors specified below [we will cover all this in the Info Session and in the first meeting].
• Brushes: You don’t need expensive brushes in this course. To start out, please have a No. 14 round; No. 20 round or quill; ¾” flat; No 12 filbert or oval wash. Please use what you have as much as possible. There are many ways of getting paint onto paper!

• Paper: With transparent watercolor, good paper is actually more important than paint quality for getting intense, saturated, luminous colors. Recommended: Arches Cold Pressed, 140 lb; Fabriano Artistico, Cold Pressed, 140 lb; Bockingford Cold Pressed, 140 lb. Acceptable: Strathmore 400 Cold Pressed, 140 lb; Canson Montval Cold Pressed, 140 lb. You will need more than 12 sheets/10x15” for the course, and you might want to experiment with different sheets, so please play around!
• Scrap watercolor paper for testing colors
• Paper towel and cotton T-shirt rags
• 12-inch white dinner plate or some other large white mixing surface; a conventional palette is not required, so please use what you have on hand. Palette preference is very personal—I’ll show you many different options in class before you make a purchase
• Hair dryer [optional but very useful]
• Spray bottle
• 2 jars for water

Transparent Watercolor Paint in tubes
• Cool red: Quinacridone Rose [PV19] or Alizarin Crimson hue [PR83]
• Warm red: Pyrrol Scarlet [PR255] or Pyrrol orange [PO73]
• Neutral yellow: Hansa Yellow Light [PY3]
• Warm yellow: New Gamboge [PY97+or Indian Yellow PY97]
• Cool Blue: French Ultramarine [PB29]
• Pthalo Blue, Green Tint [PB15]
• Burnt Sienna [PBr7]—wildcard, not in sets

 What Peggy’s students have said:
I drew in Peggy’s Café Nietzsche Drawing Club at the Met last winter, so when she announced The Interaction of Watercolor this fall, I jumped. I’ve never painted before; I’m hooked.—Paula Alyce Scully, photographer

Bio
Peggy Roalf has taught at The Cooper Union School of Art; Fordham Visual Arts/Lincoln Center; Parsons School of Design/The New School; International Center of Photography/Certificate Program; Pratt Manhattan Graphics Center; and School of Visual Arts, among others. She studied studio art at The Cooper Union School of Art; watercolor painting with John Gundelfinger at SVA; New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture; is a habitue of Friday Night Drawing at the New York Academy of Art, and believes that Drawing Changes Everything. Her Café Nietzsche Drawing Club, live at The Met, will resume when pandemic constraints are lifted. @peggy.roalf / Website
https://www.instagram.com/peggy.roalf/?hl=en #roalfinteraction
https://www.peggyroalfnyc.net/

Peggy Roalf reserves the right to alter the workshop in consideration of the group dynamic.

This course and this syllabus are the intellectual property of Peggy Roalf, protected by the United States Copyright Law 17 USC section 101 and following. Recording of video/audio is not permitted. Course materials may not be distributed in any form whatsoever.