Tag: green

Chatter Watercolor

Mountain Hut: A Study in Warm and Cool Greens

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If you have been following along here, besides Inktober 2019, I am also working my way through Rick Surowicz’s online class “Abandoned.”  Here I am trying to apply some of the points learned in his class about greens, how to mix them, and how to create warm and cool greens to demonstrate environmental temperature and distance.

To mix a cool green, Surowicz used Cerulean Blue (to give coolness), Sap Green at times tempered with Pyrrol Red, Raw and Burnt Siennas.  Varying the mixture in strength and dilution determines if it is light or dark.  Here I applied the mixture to the hills behind the hut, as well as put a few streaks into the foreground.

Warm greens hold the same formula as cool greens except the Cerulean Blue is not used.  The result is a warmer green, and depending on need, the Pyrrol Red is added, creating a darker green while keeping it in the warm arena.  The Raw Sienna creates a warmer, yellower green, and the Burnt Sienna creates a more autumnal tinge to the grasses in the foreground.

In addition to creating warm and cool greens, I also worked on lines to demonstrate direction and texture, as well as to break up horizontal and vertical.

As a study, this has been successful.  Critiquing it, I would say that the right lower portion of the stone hut should be lighter so as to contrast much better with the middle ground.  Right now it recedes and gets lost.

Practice is important in all we wish to master – here, a practice study to apply some lessons.

Painted on Fluid 100 CP 140# paper.

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Chatter Watercolor

It’s Green Around Here

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After playing with yellows yesterday, I decided to try to mix greens.  A very green landscape seemed appropriate.  Most of the greens were mixed using hansa yellow, quin gold, and cadmium yellow along with cerulean blue, ultramarine, and cobalt.  At times, I pulled in Hooker’s green, which I really like, along with some sap green.  Others at times, too, mixed with yellow or blue, or even orange!

Looking at the painting, the sky seems to not really match much of the linear quality of the rest of the picture – technique, I expect.  I had wanted the trees, foliage, and foreground to be softer, more blurred perhaps, but still full of greens.  One thing I should have done is to have not painted the sky across the entire upper portion of the picture – this kept the green foliage from being more discernible or distinct.

Overall, I am rather pleased with the final result.  The goal was green, which I certainly got, but the composition and style, while not what I envisioned, are not too bad.

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Chatter Drawing Watercolor

Poinsettia

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Another morning with sewing ahead of me – but not too much!  Just a touch here and then, thread trimming, ironing, and finally wrapping.

To start my day – after coffee, breakfast, a review, and the news – I decided to use my watercolor pencils, InkTense blocks, and Neocolor II by Caran d’Arche to draw the classical Christmas / holiday poinsettia, and some permanent black ink.

Did you know the red is really the leaf and the little yellow dots in the center are the flowers?  Poinsettias are not only crimson, but come in pale pinks and whites.  And, they are easy to grow – just take a cutting, let it dry out until hollow, and stick in some dirt, and you may be ready for next year!  I think they may also be poisonous . . .

Happy Holidays, everyone!

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Chatter Watercolor

97. Tulips

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Having photography as a hobby sometimes yields pictures that can be used to create more pictures.  I decided to give up the no-lines approach for now (though it is a great exercise to learn how to make shapes – I was just really frustrated by what I was doing), do some pencil roughing, and then work one color area at a time.  First the tulips in shades of red, orange, and yellow, mixing some oranges as I went.  Next, the greens of leaves and stems, consciously determining the areas to negative paint later on, as for the flower petals.  Finally, the bowl.  Before the whole was done, I went back to each area and tried to create a sense of depth by deepening other areas and being careful not to touch the areas I had left deliberately white.

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Chatter Watercolor

Neighborhood Tree

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By nature, I am quite impatient.  Maybe just not patient enough?  What I mean is that sometimes I work too fast, rather than thinking ahead.  In watercolor, timing is important, as is speed, but with patience thrown in.  If I look at what I am doing, some are tight-ass line drawings, and others are just messy and rather free form, without lines.  Here, I used a basic tree shape with cutouts to remind me where to not have leaves, so as to have room for sky and branches.  I also worked for shadows.

Altogether, I worked too fast.  I wanted to make some nice washes of the leaves, to show the color shifts from green to the glows of autumn.  I also need to test out colors on a piece of paper.  This is painted in a notebook, so the back of the previous page is a good place to do this (I keep trying to remind myself).   Accomplishment, though, is no mud.

Colors were fun to use, too.  I mixed together an especially interesting mix of Payne’s Grey, Carbazole Violet, and Burnt Sienna.  That is part of the pleasure of a sketch book – playtime and exploring.

I will be doing a lot of trees as I move along, but will need to do some stilllifes as well.

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Chatter Watercolor

Christmas Berries

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This morning I wanted to work on the tree ferns, but for now, the jury is out on what to do.  I ordered some watercolor marker / brushes from Amazon, as I don’t have any and the design element seems to warrant more control than a brush.  So, I decided to use this photo I took over the weekend of a Toyon – also called Christmas Berry as it shows up  Decemberish – for a quick morning paint.  Below are the results using my palette with 5 greens (yay!  green!) and a 1/2 inch flat brush.  I painted directly, no lines.

 

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