One of the most amazing things I learnt was mapping. In five years of painting lessons, workshops, art magazines and DVDs, no-one ever mentioned mapping. It was a revelation and I discovered, when applied without that interfering left brain activity, it jolly well works!
I am now so much more aware of tonal values, something I always struggled with. These are a few of the watercolours and sketches I did whilst discovering mapping with Penny.
It seems that I'm not the only one who didn't know about mapping. Most of you do it instinctively anyway, but being tonally challenged, it was a revelation for me. The heads of the boys probably illustrates mapping the best. Forget the left brain stuff, simply draw a line between your dark and light areas (best done upside down) and shade in the dark side. There are obviously differences in the dark areas, but ignore them in the initial stages. These will work out when putting in colour. It's that simple and it works. If you ignore what you are drawing/painting and follow the mapping guidelines, you will get an amazing likeness, especially with portraits.
