Steve Griggs (Ep.59) Transcript
Please note: This is an incredibly rough transcript from my conversation with Steve Griggs, Ep.59. It has not been checked by a human. To listen to the full audio version, head here.
Steve Griggs 0:00
The more confidence you get in your own voice, you begin to find a freedom. And that freedom is a release from the traps of the world telling you what you should be or shouldn't be or how you should do something or not do something.
Kelly Anne Powers 0:16
Hello, and welcome to the learn to paint podcast, the show that gives you the tools and ideas to help you design your own artistic path. I'm your host Kelly Anne powers, and today I'm talking with watercolor Steve Griggs. In the conversation, you'll discover the benefits of replicating your teachers and how to know when it's time to move beyond their style, how to approach your primaries, if you want bright colors, and an incredibly powerful way to use sketchbooks as part of your art process for shownotes had to learn to paint podcast.com/podcast/episode 59 Plus want the extended cut. It's available right now over on Patreon. We dig deeper into loose painting and you'll learn some of Griggs favorite ways of mixing watercolor paints on your paper. You can find all of that at patreon.com/learn to paint podcast. And as always, I start the interview by asking Griggs how he got started in art. All right, here we go.
Steve Griggs 1:11
I've always had an interest I've always drawn. I've always had paper and whatnot. And my mom bought me a watercolor set when I was around 10 ish. It was one of those tube sets. It wasn't a cake set, like you know, the playsets. But it was a real artists set. And that's really where I started playing with watercolor and playing with different art materials and, and so forth.
Kelly Anne Powers 1:36
How did you decide that you wanted to take watercolor specifically as a medium Seriously,
Steve Griggs 1:42
I've always had an attraction a draw to the properties of watercolor, the fluidity, the way it mixes with colors mix on paper, the way it interacts with paper, more so than the more what I call substantial or solid mediums like oil or acrylic. I do paint in those. But to me, it's like a freedom. That's that's probably a good way to say there's a freedom in watercolor that I don't really feel I have with the other mediums. And it's a relationship I relate to this medium. So I keep coming back to it.
Kelly Anne Powers 2:14
You're loose painter and where you always lose painter, or did you start off more realistically, how did your style evolve?
Steve Griggs 2:21
Well, first of all, I like like everyone else, I sought out instruction. And I took classes from different people at different colleges. And like when you take a class through a Parks and Rec kind of thing, I did all of those things. And I learned a very traditional layered approach to watercolor, which I think is essential because you learn about mixing and how colors interact and layering and all that. But it always felt like constraining and I have a design education. So in my education, I was taught to draw tight, and it was in product design. So you have to draw tight to sell the idea, or interiors you draw tight to sell the idea. So working in that I had a rich background did that. But when it came to watercolor, I wasn't satisfied with the structure of the painting, I didn't feel like it was really expressing me, I didn't really know the language to be able to say that at the time. And I got sort of frustrated with it in that sense. And then I just started painting. And from that came, I started to gain confidence in my view of the world, how I see things. And it just sort of moved in that direction and has been going down that road. Since
Kelly Anne Powers 3:35
when we're first getting started. You know, we see what our teachers are doing. And we see what the people around us are doing. And we think that is not only a way but the only way and for you to start doing something that was different. Was that a scary transition for you? And how did you have the confidence to keep going in this direction that may have looked different than what you saw others doing?
Steve Griggs 4:01
That is a really beautiful question. I have both the teaching experience, and I have the painting experience. They're joined at the hip, but they're a little bit different. As a teacher, I encourage my students to paint like me if they need to paint, try to replicate what I do. And I think that's what I was doing as a student as well. And it can be frustrating, there can be a hook in that for the student because they might not be able to accomplish what they want to accomplish right away. Just like I didn't, however, think that there is something about following somebody. And there's a skill set that you learn by following by replicating what they're doing. And it's faster to exchange that information and push that information out so people can experience it for themselves by having them follow the leader if you will, but I always encourage my students and myself to keep going down the path of my unique voice or their unique voice slike at some point, it can become comfortable to replicate the instructor and you get caught in a trap. And so I really try to guide people away from that trap, because it has to do with my definition of art what I think art is, but I really think it's important for them to see and experience that they have a unique voice. And that voice is essential to the world around us. Now, the more you go down that path, it becomes less scary, it still can be challenging, especially when you are looking at putting your work out into the world where there are so many different ways to express things. You have to keep reminding yourself, but this is my unique voice, my vision. So you can get caught in that trap at any point, you know, trying to follow someone else. And I liked the line from I think it's the Eagles, it's in a song I don't remember, but following the wrong Gods home, I think that's a great line, you can follow the wrong Gods home, you need to keep on your path, and it'll lead you home,
Kelly Anne Powers 5:59
were you aware, oh, I am stepping away from my teachers. And was that scary to pursue your own voice.
Steve Griggs 6:09
I think it's closely linked to spiritual health or emotional health. And some people struggle with that more than other people. But I do think that the healthier that you get as a an individual, and it has been a battle of mine, in one sense, the more confidence you get in your own voice, you begin to find a freedom. And that freedom is a release from the traps of the world telling you what you should be or shouldn't be, or how you should do something or not do something which are in some ways, important messages. But for an artist, it's really important that the artists find emotional health, spiritual health, because out of that comes the true essence of their unique answer, which is sometimes called voice, it's sometimes times called soil. There are other words in the vernacular that are linked to that, what I found is as I became more of secure and still going on, by the way, more secure, more established in my own emotional freedom and health. It freed me up to be more playful, with the medium more playful with everything, really. But it began to influence my art in that I began to play with the medium, and listen to it. And let it tell me, you know, instead of just mechanically executing a wash, I found different ways to do washes that led to different visual ends, which led to the kind of style that you see today, which is much different than where I started in, it's less traditional, but it still has its roots in the fundamental understanding of the medium and how to apply it. But it maybe it's like jazz, I don't know where you start riffing off. And then pretty soon, something beautiful happens or poetry, finding the right words that link together. But I think it comes from the inner, the soul of the artist if you want to go there. And the more free that soul is, the more they find their voice their way of saying things. And that's very important.
Kelly Anne Powers 8:13
So we're going to move into materials a little bit. So your watercolorist how many pigments are generally on your palette,
Steve Griggs 8:20
generally, maybe at the most six, maybe eight. But that does mean that my paint box doesn't contain 35 different colors. But if you really look at my paint box, my brush is going into maybe four or five, maybe six slots, because those are the cakes that are worn down if I'm painting a cake, but if I'm applying to paint, I usually paint on an enamel sushi plate. And there's usually the three primaries red, blue, yellow, with some shading colors, shaders, like Daniel Smith, lunar black, or I can't think of what Windsor Newton's is. But anyways, some granulating shader something that I can darken a color or a color secondary with and then there'll be possibly like a white guasha or something that I can add highlights, but not very many. Sometimes it's just to because I'm really just wanting to work one side of the color wheel, but I hardly ever paint from the kaleidoscope of colors that are out there. Now that doesn't mean I don't own I own probably 100 different paint boxes and palettes and some of them have 60 and 70 colors in them, but I rarely reach for them. How did you decide to limit your palette? I think it was this discovery, which was an evolutionary thing of the power of warm and cool primaries is sounds so fundamental, but you can mix any tertiary or secondary from those primaries and really kind of gravitating towards simplifying into that. Now if I have a special painting I'm doing that requires a unique green or a unique bread or law. like opera pink, you know, it's a color, it's very unique, you can't mix that, of course, I'll grab those and put those on the palette. But that's usually related to a feeling or some end that I have in mind for the painting, the painting will have grown out of work that's been done with the three primaries, either warm or cool are both. And it was just simplifying, because I think in simplifying and staying with those primaries, you get more cohesion in the painting, there's less spaces on the page that look like they don't belong, because the color families relate to each other. So all the secondaries and Tertiaries will relate to each other as well.
Kelly Anne Powers 10:38
Does that mean you have like a warm primary set that you would reach for or a cool primary set that you would reach for
Steve Griggs 10:45
Yeah, or put them both on the palette, it's called a split primary palette, it's called a lot of things. So I'll have warm red, like cadmium red, or whatever I'm substituting for that. Now. pyrole is working its way in like a pyro. Scarlet is a warm, and then I'll have a lizard and crimson which is cool. And I'll have those on my palette, or Ultramarine Blue and say it's really in blue, I'll mix and match. But that might make up the six colors and use them in different parts of the painting. If I want to cool something down or reach and mix a secondary out of those cools, and then a shader, how do
Kelly Anne Powers 11:22
you decide whether or not to pull out fresh to paint or working from a cake?
Steve Griggs 11:27
Well, I almost always am working from fresh squeezed paint. Now I have on my work table. Right now I have a watercolor box, that is cake. And the night before I paint I will spray into the box, saturate all the colors that are in that box, close the lid, so they have an opportunity to marinate a little bit. So when I go in the next morning, they're very pliable and workable. But that's the problem with cake. Two paints right out of the gate, you can mix Tertiaries quickly, secondaries quickly. And I think that the key to watercolor is viscosities. So you want to be able to mix really thick viscosities of color, same color a little bit weaker, a little bit weaker. Like I like to think of it in terms of dairy products, mix a yogurt mix, and then I'll mix a heavy cream mix and then a 2% milk or skim milk mix for different reasons for different kinds of wash qualities that I want as easier to achieve the viscosity with to paint. But again, when I go into those paint boxes that I've marinated overnight, they're ready to come to work. And you can mix those different viscosities with those as well. But I oftentimes see people come into class with paint boxes that haven't been worked for months. And we have to work through that problem because you cannot mix the different viscosities. When your paint is so dry, you have to really work it
Kelly Anne Powers 12:57
right. If someone is struggling, why can't I mix vibrant colors? Is that a viscosity issue?
Steve Griggs 13:03
It is a viscosity issue. It can also be what colors they're marrying. Again, I'll talk about secondary or tertiary. There are some palettes like the Ultra Marine, the cadmium red, and say a gambles yellow. I know that as a standard palette, but it's a traditional color palette, it's really wonderful. But it will not mix up bright isn't like you can't do it. But the qualities in NERT are innate qualities of those pigments are going to give a more reserved color mix. So you'll always be struggling with colors that won't be as vibrant. Whereas if you choose as another example, Cyrillic and blue, azo, yellow or canary yellow, something like that, and then throw up or pink out there, as you read, those colors inherently are going to be bright, even your secondaries and your Tertiaries will be bright too. So it's choosing the right triad of colors for the effect that you're looking for. Also, you have to keep your tools clean. If your brush has picked up a little bit of that red and you go into a yellow blue green mix, well now you're mixing all three primers, you're always going to get a neutral, and that's oftentimes a desired result. But most of the time, if you're not keeping your tools clean, you'll mix those neutrals in by accident without really realizing it, and it'll dull the color or it will take the excitement away from the color you're mixing just because it's been neutralized. So I'm very careful about what kinds of triads I put on the palette in terms of what I want to see for colors.
Kelly Anne Powers 14:40
How much is granulation or transparency or opacity part of your thinking in your pigment choices.
Steve Griggs 14:47
Well, I love texture. I just love love texture. So I paint with granulating colors there in my paint box almost, or at least in the triad. I'll have one or two granulating Colors always and I paint on rough paper. Usually it's 140 pound rough because I like the texture of the paper or lately I've been painting with a cancer on I think they call it Mondale or something like that paper, but it's rough and it's got texture in it. So I really liked that it's a huge part of what I do. Because the subjects I'm choosing the texture of the cityscape or of the landscape really comes out with granulation and with the different thicknesses of the paint of viscosity that we talked about a moment ago. And as I build my layers out wherever I am, I usually work lighter, looser washes at the beginning, and then go more opaque over the top with the details what I call the jewelry of the painting. That's very important because it really puts the punch in the painting.
Kelly Anne Powers 15:48
Could you give us a quick overview of your process.
Steve Griggs 15:51
Everything starts in my sketchbook I have hundreds of sketchbooks in the studio, and I love working in them. I'm usually working on a sketchbook that's got watercolor paper, like a canvas on XL watercolor sketchbook or Teza watercolor sketchbook, anything that's got watercolor paper. And usually they're inexpensive. So I'm in the neighborhood, right? I'm not working on my Arches paper, but I can get the effects in my sketchbook. So all my ideas, all my techniques, if I'm working on a specific technique, page after page, I'll develop in the sketchbook. And then when I see something that looks exciting to me, I lock in on that. And then I'll keep going into sketchbook and develop other iterations of that I call those motifs. So I take that same idea. It's almost like a line of jazz where I'm going off, but I bring it back to the original idea, that kind of thing that you can hear. But in the sketchbook I'll take the motif, and I'll push it and pull it and change things up. I'll invert ideas, all within that same motif. And I can develop 20 or 30 ideas, you know, maybe seven or 10 of those will be legitimate ideas to then take into the arena of creating a painting. And at that point that all taken tape off the watercolor paper on my board, take one of those motif ideas and try to develop it into a painting. Sometimes I'll paint 10 or 12 of those paintings too. So it just keeps going. And that's a huge overview of how I work. I'm really trying to keep the idea open as long as possible.
Kelly Anne Powers 17:28
Do you work from photo references? Or do you work from life
Steve Griggs 17:32
both, I think they have different value. Like the other day I was out of a park nearby and I go over to the park and I set up and I paint, there are different experiences. The studio is a really wonderful environment, I have my music on the temperature, the room is controlled. I don't have wind and sun to deal with or bugs or all the other things that happen out in the world. But when I'm out in the world painting, like the other day, it's a good laboratory for teaching myself to see, to really look into the scene that's in front of me, shape is a huge part of what I paint. I'm not a colorist, I'm not a detail painter, I'm a shape painter, I like to say that I'm a shape painter. But shapes are the most important component of my paintings and how they work together, or how I'm integrating them together. So when I'm set up outside, I'm looking at the environment. And I'm trying to teach my eyes to see the shapes, not the subject. I don't want to paint things I want to paint the shapes. And a lot of people say that, but that's what that's about it. It's a laboratory for trying all kinds of different ideas. The other day, I was in front of a stand of trees, they were green, the grass was yellow, you know from lack of water. And so those native colors are right there in front of me. And of course I start with that we all do, we start mixing what we see. But then I start to ask questions like the what if question, well, what if I change that green to like a blue, purple? How would that change how I'm working with the shape, and then I'll paint that or I'll start pulling techniques out of my technique, work kit, and I'll start overspray or scratching and or whatnot, I'll start working the shapes. But it's a laboratory. It's a place of experimentation. And it's very important to keep the skill of being able to see not just look at things, but see the shapes. And then of course derivative of that as to be able to see the way light is working on the shape, how textures working in the shape, and then what do I want to focus because there's so much information coming at you? How do I want to eliminate that and just focus on certain things. All those are all skills that I think painting outdoors helps to keep sharp or to develop. So there are two different experiences but I use them both. And in the studio. You asked about photographs. I will take a photograph and I'll break it down into simple shapes. But at some point after I'm done breaking it down into simple shapes and looking for the subject that I want to articulate, I'll put the photograph away, because I'll have a series of sketches that are in my sketchbook. And I think it's more valuable to paint from the sketches than the actual photograph. So you don't get caught in the trap of replication that we talked about earlier. But you're trying to express what you saw on the scene.
Kelly Anne Powers 20:27
But it sounds like a shape is what attracts you like, that's the spark. Okay, so then what makes a good reference for you? How do you know you have a good reference?
Steve Griggs 20:37
That's a really good question. I just got back from Europe, we had the opportunity to go to Europe for the first time. And so of course, I'm over there as an artist. And as a tourist, I think I shot over 2000 photos. And a lot of it's machine gun approach, trying to collect as much and try not to deprive myself of the experience of being there, that kind of fine line. So a lot of times you come back with photos that are they're just pretty raw. But of course, I'm a designer, I'm an artist. So as I'm taking the photo, I'm moving the camera around to get good composition and things like that are trying to so an inherent within photo will be opportunities, let's just call them opportunities. Sometimes they're well designed, sometimes they're not. So what I'm really looking at is sometimes how do I capture the subject? If it's a an alleyway of that there were a lot of narrow street scenes in Europe, with these ornate lanterns and stuff for lights and people and dining. There were cafes everywhere, beautiful subjects for painting. But how do I capture that so that I can take it back and then harvest out of it something that is worth a story with telling or some kind of response that I want to make. So sometimes I'm just shooting pictures. But if I'm really trying to capture an idea that I see, I will look for how the shapes are integrating with other shapes within that scene. Let's say there's a an umbrella at a cafe, umbrella, and then you've got people sitting under it, and then behind it as the building well, how does that umbrella invade the shape of the building? And interlink itself with it? And then if the people are going to be the subject? How can I interlink those shapes so that they provide an interesting composition or format to tell the story about the people? So those are the kinds of things I'm looking for inter linkages, overlaying one shape overlay the other? How does that work? In an embedding? A lot of times I'll see a scene where a column say in this case, it was a Roman column is going up into the sky, and it's invading the shape of the sky, or interlinking. With that shape of the sky, how can I capture that photo so that I can take that idea back into the studio and paint it later. So I'm looking for those kinds of opportunities. And when I look at shapes, I'm looking for interlinkages house shapes overlay? And how shapes are embedded inside of another shape that by credit a great story,
Kelly Anne Powers 23:07
how much are you looking for size contrast in this part of it,
Steve Griggs 23:12
that's a part of it as well. But if I don't have the size, contrast, inherent and photo psych, you can't change the orientation of the buildings in here on the ground, you only have one angle you can take the photo from, it doesn't mean when I get back into the studio, I can't exaggerate the photo or shape within the photo and change the scale. That's another thing that I'll do with shapes quite often is I'll exaggerate one shape over the other shapes to create visual dominance. And then that might be the shape where I put most of the beautiful color to. So it does shape contrast emphasizes that notion. And then color re emphasizes that notion that this is the important thing in the painting. So I'm looking for those opportunities all the time.
Kelly Anne Powers 23:54
There's this idea that the painting starts with brush on paper. But for you in your mind, where does your process actually begin?
Steve Griggs 24:03
Let's bring in Mark Rothko for a moment. Mark Rothko made a statement that stuck with me said a painting is not a picture of the experience, but it is the experience. So paintings for me if I stay true to that quote, and I think that there's gold in that, quote, paintings are what is the experience that I'm having, or I'm trying to create? So that's sort of where it begins. And then once I've identified that, I'll start to do the work in the sketchbook, I find that when I'm linked to that to the experience, or if you think about experiences as being the stimulus, and then the painting is my response to the stimulus or the message. So we're surrounded by these millions of messages of beauty that just bombard us from every direction. And artists are unique people in that we're hearing those messages that creates the energy of the experience and If we can understand the experience, then We reinterpreted that and we have to respond, and the responses are painting. If I'm in touch with that process, or that way of thinking or that experience really in touch with it, then I can take that energy into developing the idea that will be the panic, that will be my response to that stimulus
Kelly Anne Powers 25:22
hearing you talk about that, like that seems like such a delicate place to be. So how do you create spaces, whether they're physical spaces or mental spaces where you are free to do that, as opposed to like, the critic always be like, well, that's stupid. And that's wrong. And that's not the color of trees, like, those feel very much at odds. So how do you create a space that makes it possible for you to approach your work in this way?
Steve Griggs 25:51
That's a great, great question. Let me answer it with a couple of little components. Before I start every class, I always invite all the spirits of the room that are the critical spirits to just leave the room, and leave us all alone. And I invite all my students, this sounds kind of weird, but isn't weird. I invite my students to invite their spirits to leave the room too, because we want to create a safe space where we can just play and have fun. And sometimes that happens well, and sometimes it doesn't. Well, it happens personally, on a personal level, too. I those critical voices that I have to silence, one thing that I've started saying is when I hear them, well, that's not the shape. That's not right. I tried to stop when I recognized that's going on. And I tried to say, you know, there was a time in my life when I may have needed you, I may have needed you to talk to me that way. But I don't need you right now. So if you would please just leave, just leave, I've got this, I don't need you. And then I invite that voice to leave and try to it does work, but you have to focus on that. And some days are diamonds and some days are not, you just have to recognize that you're human. And some days are going to be days when that voice will leave and won't get back in the room. And those are really fun days, some days that won't leave the room. I think it's tied to what we talked about earlier, emotional and spiritual health. So if I'm having a bad days, watercolors like one of those mediums that you cannot disguise that, if you're jammed up, I you know, it's like a funnel. If your funnel is jammed up, it will show in your brush, they will come out in your brush. And I'll start looking at the work that's going down on the page. And I want to be clear, I'm not being critical, but it's not going down the way I'm seeing it, I will recognize something is in the funnel. And I need to get that out of the funnel. So I'll sit down and I'll start to think about what's going on with me. And I can generally find that now worked out and some days, you get to the end of the day, and you just have to come back tomorrow. But I think it's about keeping that funnel clean and clear. And it goes back to freedom. Watercolor is such a free medium, free ink medium oil, you can just scrape it off or paint over the top of it acrylic, same way. But watercolor, it's going to show that it just shows it. So be aware of that just pay attention to that I tried to pay attention to that. And I try to create environments where those voices are not dominant, where what's in my heart is dominant. In the experience.
Kelly Anne Powers 28:26
How important do you think are your sketchbooks as part of creating a process for you that is freeing
Steve Griggs 28:33
some days, you'll get to the studio. And it's just like everything you get up in your arms are sore, your back is sore, and you have to kind of do some exercise to loosen up well, that happens artistically too. So I'll take my sketchbooks, and I'll just start working on some ideas. And sometimes I'll just paint figures, then I can start adding color and, and it's a way of loosening up, I have another thing that I do I call it gifts from the moment. And I'll tape off like a quarter sheet of watercolor paper in a grid four panel grid. And I'll start with one panel. And I'll just start painting shapes. Next panel page shapes, paint shapes, through all four panels, let them dry and then I'll come back and I'll ask myself, well, what do I see in those shapes? What does that evoking in me, if I just add this or add that or this, it creates a story and I'll go panel to panel. I call it gifts in the moment because it only takes 10 or 1520 minutes to do this. But it's a way of creating that freedom and getting yourself loose getting your hand and your arm and your body used to working with a brush. It's a way of getting yourself out of just seeing things in grays and little color here a little color there. And sometimes these little panels end up producing pieces that are just really beautiful pieces of art and I have framed them or submitted them to shows but that isn't the intent. The intent is a warm up or loosening up Exercise, just like working sketchbook, and then I have a record. So I'll do maybe one or two pages in the sketchbook and I work in wire bound. So I can lay it flat, and I'll paint both sides, flip the page, paint both sides. By that time, I'm generally loose and working on something. And then I can go into thinking about what what do I want to paint for the day?
Kelly Anne Powers 30:23
So when you transition into the what do you want to paint for the day? And you sort of have maybe a photo that you're working from that you connect with the shapes? What are you figuring out in those sketchbooks, and why in a sketchbook why not just in the painting?
Steve Griggs 30:39
Well, it could I mean, I know several painters that paint, just they just paint. And that's legitimate, too. I think the benefit of working the sketchbook is once you get on the theme of a motif, you end up with a myriad of things that could become a painting. Whereas if you just attack the paper, and sometimes I do, I don't want to mislead you. But sometimes I go into the studio and I will have an inspiration, I just want to attack that idea that does happen. But the sketchbook allows me to really kind of 360 an idea, I can walk around it, I can invert it, I can flip it. So if I'm painting a positive shape here, negative shape there, I can reverse it and do a negative shape positive shape. And the result will be something different, just because of the nature of where you using negative and positive space, I will change the format in the sketch from sending elongated portrait to an elongated landscape. How does that change affect the idea, and sometimes then it's like, okay, this doesn't fit this idea. So I'll reject the format change I made and go back to one where it was stronger. And then colors, red and yellow. These are great Oh widmet, the blue and the green are more solid. But I get that from working in the sketchbooks where I can just change things up real quickly staying with the same motif, if I'm doing a commission piece, where they have asked for a specific kind of painting, it's very valuable for generating ideas around the idea that they're asking for, but still keeping me in my arena where I can be as free and as loose with the idea as possible. Otherwise, I'll start painting what I think they want me to paint. And that's the trap, right? We've been talking about it and I'll get into the trap of trying to paint to please them, partly you have to write, it's part of the agreement that I have with the patron it's asking for the commission, I will say to them, I will paint five or six iterations from which you can choose. If you don't see something in there that meets your I don't want to say requirement but your need, that's fine. We shake hands and we part. But the idea is I want to create boundaries, where I'm in control of what I can paint and how I can paint it. And I think that keeps me free to be who I am as an artist. Working in a sketchbook is the place where I can do that and get five or six ideas, pull them out, paint them up, send them to the client. And almost always I think I've only had one experience where where the client said no, not even close. But almost always they go beyond the expectation
Kelly Anne Powers 33:21
before you go into a painting you figured out format. You figured out shapes and
Steve Griggs 33:27
color. Yeah, oftentimes technique, you know, I have a book on my shelf that says 100 100 watercolor techniques I've read and I laugh. I laugh because I only use six or 10 techniques. But there may be a technique that will give me the color mix I'm looking for for that subject. I can work that out in the sketchbook,
Kelly Anne Powers 33:49
how do you know that you're ready to start the painting. And then how is a painting different from the sketchbook?
Steve Griggs 33:58
different problems? A lot of times a scale has a lot to do with the outcome. So it's a lot easier to control washes and watercolor on a smaller scale. And every time you move it up, the problems change or they intensify intensity is a form of change. I did one commission for a restaurant here in Denver, and they wanted my typical street scenes. And yeah, that'll be easy, but they wanted it size wise they wanted it like 40 by 32 or I forget the size. It was huge for watercolor painting. And I thought oh, this will be easy because I'm very familiar with the subject and I can pick my cityscapes and replicate, you know, just change them up a little bit and I was completely blown away by just changing from a full sheet of watercolor paper or half sheet to this larger sheet. It changed everything about the way the washes went down, and how to handle the washes. scale has everything to do with it. So when I'm working on a sketch and sketchbook, I'm very aware that I'm working with techniques I'm choosing, but when I move them up into a painting, I'm going to have different problems. And I have to be ready to solve those problems. At the larger scale. Sometimes it's simple, you just change the size of the brush that you put in washed down to a larger brush. But oftentimes, it's not that simple. You know, you have to do other things, tilt the board more or work vertically at for 30 seconds, and then flatten the board real quick. There's things that you learn in changing scale from experience. But oftentimes, there's a big difference from the sketch to the painting. But if I feel like I can accomplish capturing the energy of the sketch, in the painting, I've done my job, it's the energy or the experience, that I'm trying to replicate less the actual scene, if you will. But that's true for everything I paint, I'm trying to express the energy, I keep using the word energy, but the energy is the experience that I had as a result of seeing that beautiful sunset. That's what I'm trying to capture, not the sunset itself, don't think that it's possible. Even with a camera, I don't think it's possible, it's still an iteration of the sunset, it's not the sunset. And we just have to remember that, but the sunset is the stimulus for the photograph. It's the stimulus for the painting, because we see this beautiful thing, and we have to respond, we have to say something, we have to write a song or a poem, or a novel or an opera or something. But creative people, artists have to respond, we are different from others in that sense. And the sunset, the beauty around us is what creates art, it creates a need to respond. And we do it as best we can.
Kelly Anne Powers 36:56
Well then for you when you're working on a painting, are you generally working wet into wet do you generally start at the top and work down? How do you generally build the painting part of your process,
Steve Griggs 37:09
there's lots of ways to create a painting, so depends on again, working the sketchbook I might say this is a great opportunity for an inside out painting, or an outside in painting, you know, just because of the way the subject, the thing I'm trying to say or the way the sketch presents itself, inside out is I start with the subject and I paint the subject first, then I work out to the background shapes, they're going to work with that subject outside in is I paint the outside first and I work in toward the subject and generally, not always. But that might be a layered approach, like I'm painting the sky in the mid ground first, and then layering over the top of that subject. Again, changing viscosity paint through the different layers, and the different parts of the painting the background foreground, middle ground, there's lots of ways to approach a painting and it depends on the subject. I love the way color works with other color on a wet and wet paper field. So oftentimes, I'm painting at least some kind of water on the paper, which is creating some kind of wet and wet technique. But again, if you saturate the paper, you're gonna get a different wet and wet response than if you just take a spray bottle and lightly mist the paper, you'll have a little bit of inertia in which to paint that wet and wet, but the result will be different, and depends on where you want to push the effect you're after. And then of course, I can manipulate those shapes to once they're on the paper, I can scrape into a mic and lift back out parts of that field of color I put down or I can overspray it and I can put texture on it that way, there are lots of things I can do to manipulate the shape. Because it's water. My favorite way to paint with watercolor is something that accentuates the wetness of the medium, the fluidity of the medium. I think that's kind of essential in painting watercolor that you don't really have with other mediums.
Kelly Anne Powers 39:11
Does that mean that you primarily work wet into wet in some capacity
Steve Griggs 39:15
in some capacity? Yeah. Now, I said inside out, you know, those are strategies or strategic ways to apply paint right inside out outside in. Sometimes I will work on totally dry paper, and I'll work one section of the paper where I'll wet that paper but keep the other part dry. Work into that and then start working my way into other shapes. But they're now on dry paper so I can get this assembly of what technique and dry technique depending on what I'm trying to do. And example that might be if I'm painting some kind of floral, I might work the background around that shape, really wet and then tighten up and go in with the dry brush. So I'm always looking for contrasts either in Color or value or technique. So transitions, I call them transitions. So if I'm transitioning out of a wet wash, I like to put a dry wash next to it, or somewhere in it, or over it once it's dried, but I'm always looking for contrasts and transitions. And using the medium, like using those techniques are those strategic ways of building a painting to their fullest extent. So I get the most out of them. So I do work wet and wet a lot. There's a lot of water on my paper. But then there's a lot of dry work that goes on to
Kelly Anne Powers 40:36
you said that shapes are a really critical, foundational part of how you work, how do you suggest that your students simplify a complex scene
Steve Griggs 40:45
I like to teach them to see first, I like to energize that aspect of their experience first, so a lot of us are really good at looking, but we don't see. And that's what we're good at collecting on I'm at this part of the city because of the information we're collecting. But we're really not in engaged in where we are, right. So I like to slow them down. And I like to show them a scene might be a landscape, and I like to introduce them to the idea of seeing the simple shapes in the scene, I'll paint with words for a minute, I might have a landscape that's got a strong sky shape, it's got a strong tree line, and it's got a strong foreground, right. So I will say, start to look at these scenes and break them down by their simple shapes. In that instance, or that example, the sky shape would be shape one, and the tree line might be shaped to don't care how many trees or what color they are or anything. And then the foreground shape, which could have all kinds of things going on in it. But it's one big foreground shape that shaped three, but learn to see those three, or four or five, whatever the shape commands, but look for breaking the shapes down into simple shapes. And that will get you miles down the road. Because it'll slow you down, what slows me down. Because remember, we've got all of this, these millions and millions of messages about beauty coming at us everywhere we are, it'll help to start to simplify and organize those messages so that they're manageable. And then once we have those shapes identified, then I will start them asking this question, which is the darker shape relative or compared to the other two shapes? Oh, it's the tree line. Great. So that's a number a or number one or a value, right? Or maybe it's C because we'll work from light to dark. And we'll say three shapes, three values. So the tree line is going to have a value, see darkest shape in the scene. And then what is the lightest shape, so on and so forth. And so they'll begin to organize the shapes that simple shapes by value. But it's comparative value, a little bit different from drawing and painting with values. It's mostly identifying the relationships of these simple shapes. And once we've decided, once we have made those, we're really far down the road. Now we can think about it in terms of no tan, high contrast dark and light, or there's lots of things we can do with that information, we can also begin to say, okay, in those three simple shapes to stay with that example, where's the most interesting texture, or where's the most interesting color? Where's the most interesting top shapes, like in our case, the foreground might be just grass, it might have nice color in it. But I can render that very simply. But the interesting shapes are in a tree line. So then that's going to be the focus of my painting, it helps me decide that. And then I begin to ask Well, alright, how can I render, or paint that simple shape? And those sub shapes in an interesting way? And how can I use the other shapes as foils, or supporting actors in the scene to tell the story about the tree line. And I think that's a fundamental way to teach people, myself included, how to break a scene down, relax with it, and harvest information out of it by comparison, and it just simplifies and takes the complexity away, and then allows me as the artist to choose, what is the most important thing to say here? Or what is my response? What is the energy of this scene? And then how can I take the knowledge I have a watercolor techniques, color, etc. And how can I tell that story in its best form?
Kelly Anne Powers 44:45
Are you doing that thinking? Are you encouraging your students to do that thinking as thinking only when they're looking at the scene or is that thinking you're doing in your sketchbooks?
Steve Griggs 44:56
Well, I teach it and I do it in my sketchbook. Okay, so it take the example of the other day when I went over to the park and was painting, the very first thing I did was break the scene down because it's a scene I painted a million times. It's not a unique scene, it was a tree line sky with foreground, because it's a park. But I wanted to get into the scene, I wanted to simplify it for myself, break it down. And so I actually do draw little boxes, format boxes. So if it's a landscape, I'll draw the boxes, a landscape format, or elongated landscape, etc. And then within it, I'll sketch out those some I'll do that whole exercise. What are the simple shapes? What are the comparative values of this scene? What do I want to emphasize, and then it gets me into a mode where I can step over into the next page of the sketchbook. And I can begin to develop the motif. Because I've got a good handle on the scene. It's not foreign to me, I'm integrating myself as an artist into the experience of what I'm seeing. And then I can begin to interpret it or I can begin to render it, whatever word you want to put on that. I don't just go and just simply paint that very rarely do I do that a lot of times I go to these plein air festivals, and be painting was 30 or 60, other very accomplished artists, and they're setting up and they just attack. Sometimes you know the page, Steve's over here, doing his little sketchbook work, it just helps me to get into the scene and not start following the wrong God's home. Like, Oh, I gotta paint like this person over here. Look at how amazing that is. It is amazing. But that's their painting. That's what they're about. What am I about? What what do I have to say? How is this scene? energizing? Or what is it saying to me? And and how can I, that's I think the lane that we need to stay in the uniqueness of what you have to say is very important.
Kelly Anne Powers 46:53
So if someone came to you and said, I want to get really good at painting, what advice do you give them?
Steve Griggs 47:00
I think it's about mileage, paint, paint, paint, paint, find somebody or a group of instructors that you are attracted to, and engage them, take a class, read about them look at their work, but I would encourage them to look at them or study from them. And if they take a class from me, I encourage this, look at what they do with the medium, or the technique, the way that they paint. Certainly Look at that. And practice that and learn to copy that until you don't need to. But listen, more importantly for the energy that goes into their painting, what is the source of that? Where's that coming from? What is their focus their drive, find out what that source is? And then start to look at their work and say, how did they express that energy? You know, and you asked a lot of questions about color and sketchbooks and practice, what is their process, all those are important, but I think the key is try to be like them until you don't need to be like them till you can be who you are. And if you can do that right away, that's even better. But most of us we need to spend time it's the mileage component, but find out what is the energy of their painting, because there's a lot of really good painters out in the world that are teaching people to replicate them, and they are replication of someone else. And that that happens a lot. And I'm not saying it's bad. I'm saying it's it might not be where you want to go. As an artist, it might not get you where you want to go. But if you can discover what the energy behind what they're doing is that will take you a long way. So practice, I think it was Leonardo da Vinci that said, if you want to be an artist, you have to hold the instrument often. There's so much truth in that just you've got to paint. And then secondly, find people that you admire, and I have a lot of artists that I admire, I think they hung the moon. And I'll never paint like them. Never, but I love their work. But there are things about the energy in the way that they approach their work that I have taken and incorporated into my own practice. That's huge. That's really huge.
Kelly Anne Powers 49:17
You can learn more about Steve Griggs, including his workshops at WWW dot Steve Griggs watercolor.com And on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, and we'll link to everything in the show notes. Thank you so much for being with us today, Steve.
Steve Griggs 49:30
Thank you, Kelly. This was a lot of fun.
Kelly Anne Powers 49:33
So that's the end of the main feature. But guess what, there's more with artists Steve Griggs to hear the extended episode right now where we'll dig deeper into loose painting and you'll learn some of Griggs his favorite ways to mix watercolor pigments on your paper head to patreon.com/learn to paint podcast fans of the show love it and you will to check it out at patreon.com/learn to paint podcast. Thank you to everyone over in the podcast art club on Patreon extra shiny thank you to high gloss supporters Andrew Attebery, Debbie and Brian Miller, Reanna Da Rold, Janet Wheeler, Nancy Bryant , Kathryn Ordway , Pam Lyle and Victoria Young
. See you over on Patreon for the extended cut bonus conversation. Happy Painting