paint, pastel, paper
I needed a change of pace – a way to relax – after yesterday’s very intense painting of buildings and people. It’s nice to visit familiar territory. But, I was not without goals. Here I worked on subtle gradations and color change in the sky; misty / soft trees in the horizon using moist paper to blur and indicate distance; a couple of buildings with subtle rooftops; snow. On Arches CP 140#, 9×12.
Another wet, wet painting in watercolor.
Here, I wet the paper, and then began putting in areas of color, beginning with the sky in the central part of the painting, and then blobbing down the foliage in the foreground and the distance. The line of the slope was separated from the horizon beyond. As things dried, I blobbed on more colors, and continued to work wet-into-wet as the paper dried. In the end, I was able to draw the trunks of the distant trees without their blurring using diluted colors of the darker tree trunks.
It’s really hard to describe how to do a painting like this. In doing these kinds of paintings I am finding it is necessary to have a sense of the composition itself – lights, darks, soft shapes, hard edges. It is also necessary to think about negative and positive space while painting, as well as the overall effect desired. I worked light to dark, and strove to keep the earliest colors as separate as possible from others. In the end, I used glazes to unify areas with color as well as worked with thick paint and a very dry brush for some detail.
140# CP Arches, 16×20. It took about 3 hours to work on, using time in between to dry the paper with a blow dryer or let the water get absorbed into the paper so softer edges could be achieved.
Of the 3 “splish splash” paintings I have done, this one is my favorite. This technique works very well for areas with a lot of foliage, but what about ocean scenes, skies, and so on? That is next on my agenda for this method.
This was a lot of fun – I hope you like it!
A bad reference to Virginia Woolf’s novel, which is an interesting read.
This painting is a dedication to lighthouses worldwide. They have saved so many lives by letting sailors know of treacherous waters. Add to that, lighthouses are often found in spare and rugged places, all of which make for dramatic and wonderful photos and paintings.
I have often thought I would like to live in such a place, hearing the waves crash, watching the light circling through the night, and, of course, the sound of fog horns. Throw in some seal barks and sea gulls, and I would be pretty happy. Sleep could be a challenge though.
I made up this painting, amalgamating lighthouses and buildings from various images. My goal was to practice shading, such as moving from a sunlit side to the shadow side, using pointillism techniques. You can see this on the conical shape of the lighthouse as well as on the buildings. I have tried to give a sense of cliffs and housing sunk down a bit behind the green of the grass. Morning or evening light for the sky, or an intimation of fog and filtered sunshine is also attempted.
As I work more in pointillism, I realize that this helps me tremendously in sorting out colors. As far back as I can remember, mud has been my most famous by-product in painting. It could be that this is something I really need to use as a primary technique, though I am thinking of doing a pointillistic painting in gouache, and then re-wetting it to blend the colors applied in dots.
Now, on to other adventures!
Our cold winter thus far has hit a low of 64F or so in the past several weeks. No snow, certainly; sadly, no rain, either. Perfect for the next fire season, which is becoming a longer and longer annual event.
So, I dream of snow, and pull up memories of living in upstate New York, hiking for miles across woodlands and farms in the early morning or early evening. The light slants, the air mists, and a winter wonderland becomes a magical world filled with rivers and creeks, trees, and trails left behind by others.
Morning, rising mist, looking north.
I tried to capture the sense of mist rising from a lake in the early morning. Dry brush seemed to be the best solution, but I think I sort of missed it (hahahaha). I used a square, flat brush, moving up and down and sideways. The thing is, it wasn’t really foggy and blurred, but rather defined in the image.
Feels good to be painting again!
Pastels just feel so natural. Get your fingers into the colors, dust, papers, blending. So tactile. I can’t tell you how many times I washed my hands here, but more than I would even with Covid-19 lurking around . . . . !
Farms in California are a bit different than what I remember as a kid in the Midwest and out on the plains. The land along the coast is gentle and low lying. The ocean brings in mist and fog, creating at times a dreamy, otherworldly quality that is soft and ethereal. Fog comes and goes, scenery appears and vanishes. Colors can be pale or deeply rich depending on light and cloud.
Wetness in watercolor varies. There are times when a very dry brush on dry paper is necessary to give sharp, clear edges to an object. Then there is wet-on-dry wherein washes are applied to dry paper with a lot of water. And finally, wet-in-wet, where wet color is applied to wet paper. As the paper dries, the color behaves differently. There is so much to learn in watercolor!
Of late, I have been painting with a lot of water and a lot of color. It’s a challenge, but daily painting is yielding better results overall. Not every day, but overall! Yesterday, I watched a number of videos, and did two studies based on videos by Rick Surowicz and Edo Hannema.
This one is from an early video by Surowicz. He used some frisket, but my bottle was not working, so I painted without it. I really needed it as his style is not just wet, but sopping wet! He uses a fine mist sprayer to scoot paint around. The result can be quite nice as you build layers of colors on layers of color. I did this painting on Strathmore 400 paper, a paper I don’t especially like, so I was quite pleased with how it handled all the water. The palette consisted of three colors – sap green, indanthrene blue, and a bit of Indian red.
Edo Hannema is a master of the wash. I enjoy using his videos as study guides. The above painting is my favorite of the two I did yesterday. The palette was limited to raw sienna, burnt sienna, cobalt blue, ultramarine blue. The green was a mixture of cobalt and raw sienna. One thing I really like about Hannema’s videos is he tells you when he thinks he makes a mistake, or needs to fix something in his painting, as well as tips on using colors. It’s rather like eavesdropping on the artist.
I decided to look at mists and soft edges because the other day Rick Surowicz posted a video about mist rising below a mountain ridge – Overlook:
This was a good video to watch on how to create a mist or fog. He also has another one called Misty Lake which was the one I used in my above studies:
Edo Hannema is a master at wet-in-wet techniques, which are great for fogs and soft effects. The horizon of this painting video demonstrates this quite well. The thing that is especially fun about the video below is the fact he took a painting he did of this scene in the summer and converted it to winter:
I find using practice videos helpful in learning techniques. They are also helpful in thinking about how I paint versus how I want to paint. Like many beginners, I put in far too much detail, and my own impatience impairs final results far too often. Letting the paper dry is important, and I am learning to do that – my hair dryer is hanging within easy reach! Leaving white paper is getting more “natural” in feeling, so I am thinking ahead as well.
Nowadays, I find I am plotting out paintings in my head. Daily painting is another big step forward as I now have the time to spend on it without a million other things demanding my time weighing me down with guilt – chores and duties or the pleasures of a hobby.
More wet-in-wet work. This time, I paid a bit more attention to the details along with the wet paper and paint. I laid down washes, waited for them to dry, and then laid down wash upon wash. At times I lifted color out while still wet, too. It’s hard to describe what I did, but overall I was more deliberate in my approach to this painting, taking time rather than letting my impatient personality dominate. The result is a more successful painting.
Colors include burnt sienna, Hooker’s green, ultramarine blue, quinacridone gold, and perhaps a touch of sap green and cobalt blue. Limited palettes really help pull a painting together, as well as help you learn what colors, when mixed, produce what new color.
Brushes included a huge round for the main washes, and then a medium / small round, and a rigger brush for the grasses. I got the rigger as a Christmas present, and this is the first time I used it. I practiced on scrap paper, and can see why a lot of people like them! This one is a bit stiff and has a lot of snap to it.
Journey by Paper 