Tag: forest

Chatter Watercolor

Birch Trees

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Birch Trees – from a photo in Module 2 of Andy Evansen’s Class

If you have been following me for a bit, you know that I have enrolled in a lot of painting classes. This is a study from my watercolor class, online with Andy Evansen. His work covers a lot of subjects, but I like his ones of the natural world the best. So, lazy me, I stick with his photos of the wilds, but will, at some point, take the dive and do something with buildings and people, and maybe even cars.

I used frisket to create the hard edges of the birch trees and the snowy areas of the logs in the foreground. The other white areas, the snow, is plain paper, no frisket. After the frisket dried, I did the sky, sunlit mountain, and dark background. Then, a bit of the foreground. Finally, the frisket was removed.

When the frisket was gone, I worked left to right, creating the shadows of the birch trees. Upon those shapes I added heavier paint to create the blacks characteristic of birch trunks. Various other details got worked in. White gouache came in handy to clean up some of the birch tree trunks as well as to create the fine branches of the trees toward the top of the painting.

The only thing I have some issues with is the very large birch tree on the right, the one which stretches top to bottom. It is not quite right, but that is something for correcting later on. Despite that, I am pleased with what I am learning, and creating, with all these classes. Painting and drawing and artwork is in the forefront of my mind these days, and it is beginning to show in more “successful” paintings from my viewpoint.

9×12 CP 140# Arches paper; primarily watercolor with a touch or two of gouache. (Maybe 3 or 4 or more….)

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Acrylic Painting Chatter

The Forest Track

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Today is my fifth painting with acrylics. I felt confident enough to choose a more complex subject, using (of course) another YouTube video. I am learning a lot by following videos, especially ones that suggest brushes and colors, as well as explain techniques.

This painting is done on Fredrix canvas pad paper, 11×14. The canvas, though already gessoed, was gessoed by me. I like that step and feel it is a good way to begin a painting, much like grinding ink prior to doing sumi-e. There is a meditative element to it.

Murray Stewart, whose video I followed, painted his underlying canvas with burnt sienna. I used red ochre and found that the color is just yummy! I live where red soil is known, so it was like seeing an old friend. That said, from there I pretty much followed through the video. About half way, Stewart mentions that the basic work was done, and details were what were needed to finish the painting. I agreed, but watched through to the end.

I have been using titanium white for mixing colors, but decided to use zinc white, as I do with gouache. For gouache, and mixing colors, it is great, but the titanium is a much better choice for mixing colors in acrylics. I am not quite sure where I will use zinc white in acrylics, but I am sure I can do some research.

This video presented me with a lot of material I enjoyed learning: making sun beams, using a fan brush for foliage, dark against light and light and against light effects. More, too, simply by doing. While painting, I found that dipping my brush in water prior to picking up paint made for better painting. The brush wasn’t sopping, and the water in the brush gave enough moisture to allow pure pigment to be spread around. I also found that this helped with glazes.

So, here is Stewart’s video – he did a good job, and he is pretty darn funny, too!

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Chatter

On the Edge of Field and Forest

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Another winter day . . . snow, sunrise, warm and cold. Pointillism once more.

This time I laid in the background color, such as the blue of the sky merging into the gold of the horizon, blending them together with white. the same with the diagonal hedgerow and foreground snow. After that, I used a tiny, tiny brush, soft to the touch, and filled it with gouache paint I thinned down a lot.

The time to complete this painting was easily 2-3 hours (with time out for lunch and a nap, of course!). I think the color gradation, especially in the sky, has worked well with the usage of small points of color. I also tried to make the middle ground snow cooler and greyer than the foreground snow.

Ahhhh! It feels so good to paint!

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Chatter Pastels

Northern Marsh

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Still working in pastel.  I cleaned up the pastels I was using yesterday by putting them in a container of corn meal and shaking them gently.  It did the job.  I also took a different approach to today’s painting, and the difference is evident to me (cuz I did it!).

I decided to use a piece of 7×11 Uart 800 sanded pastel paper, which is the finest grit in the Uart series.  I bought a sample pack a while back, and now that I think I get how to use pastels fairly well, I thought it was time to begin.  Having cleaner pastels also helped.  I also decided to work from light to dark this time, like a watercolor, and it seems to have been a bit more successful.  My colors were getting rather muddy in the last one.  I also did not apply any fixative to the painting until it was done.  In the others I had used workable fixative between layers.

Overall, rather a bit more pleased with this pastel painting than yesterday’s.  It was more pleasant to do, probably in part because I simplified my approach.  Working light to dark – putting in the sky and water first – may also have helped.  The Uart 800 sanded pastel paper was really nice, too, and gave a nice smooth finish as the paper has a very fine tooth to it.  I used a final fixative on it, but I am still unsure how many layers of final fixative are to be used.

Now, time to attach sleeves to the sweater I am knitting!

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Chatter Gouache

Coastal Dawn

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Evidence of overworking is present in the white highlights . . . they just don’t seem to go with the rest of the painting insofar they are too bright.  I was thinking in terms of photography and histograms – white point, black point.  I wonder if I am criss-crossing two different art formats.  Besides that, the rocks are perhaps too orange for the distant sky, although sandstone can take on an incredibly orangish color under the right light.

Hmmmmm.

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Chatter Drawing Watercolor

On the Forest Floor

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A few goals for this mornings painting.  First, keeping the white flowers white.  Outlines helped here!  Second, wet-in-wet painting.  That worked well, too.  As an afterthought, I worked on the shape of the vignette within the frame.  Top, bottom, sides.  The far right could run off the page a bit more – I could crop it, if I wanted, but I rather like the reminder of the flaws I see, too.

 

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