One of the things that is often a point of contention for many who work in watercolor is when to stop – when not to paint any more – when is overworking the painting happening. Today’s study is of a lone building on Saturna Island in British Columbia. It sits on a hill, silhouetted against the sky.
The building itself is not well done – it is overworked. That, though, was not the point of the painting. The point of the painting is the hill up to the house – paint it, work the colors, create depth and dimension and a sense of the vegetation. I worked wet-in-wet; put a few glazes on; re-wet the paper and painted again when I needed to add some detail, such as the shape of grasses or vegetation. I also wanted to create a way to get the eye up the hill to the house, and the pathway itself does the trick.
Composition is also something I was considering. How am I leading the eye to that little building? Above is a an overlay with some of my eye-deas. I can think of more, too, but I could also go nuts analyzing things. The darks acted as a balance on either side of the hill, but the tree on the right is too big as far as I am concerned. It just kept growing – spring??
Finally, values. Lights, darks, mediums. Is my contrast working? If I look, I see the zig-zag of the darker path leading up the hill, but more subtle is the light zig-zag to its left. The darker values on the right of the hill repeat the zig-zag. Various areas of light and dark point your eye toward the building.
I am pleased with the hill in this painting, and that is what I wanted to focus on. It is an oddly shaped mass of color, but within it are variations of all sorts – warm and cool, dark and light – that give it shape and depth.
My current focus on watercolor is planes and dimension. I am trying to break down my ability to create structure, and for me the natural shapes of hills and trees are far easier to work on for now, although buildings will come in the future. Negative painting was a first study, but that surrounds as well as creates other planes and dimensions.
Let’s see what is next!
Journey by Paper 