Evening On The Lake

I was thinking about adding a tree - for a vertical thrust - on the left of this watercolor but when I tried it on a print I had made for the purpose, I changed my mind. I felt it detracted from the sky which is the main focus of the watercolor.  A friend suggested to me that this would look really good as a very large painting and I think it might. The size of this watercolor is 12" x10". I think I need to retry it on a half sheet (22"x 15").  It lends itself to a wider format.

Foggy Morning

We get a log of fog coming in over the bay and the mountains at this time of year. It's so beautiful, especially when it settles over the sea. Thought it was time to try and capture the scene in watercolors. I took this to class today and I'm pleased to say our instructor Jerry had good things to say about it.  I am pleased with the result - especially since my forte does not lie in painting boats, albeit in silhouette. 

Overcast Morning

My plan was to paint a watercolor with mostly neutral colors and add a touch of yellow which I hoped would create a glow amongst the neutrals. The yellow ochre area started off as a piece of land, but with all the wet-in-wet I was doing, I thought it looked better as a water feature so I added a dark bank in the foreground and some reflections in the distance.  By reducing the yellow area it also enhanced what little color remained.  I think I will try this again and vary the scenes. I like the soft effect I achieved in this piece.

Dawn Light

I decided this week to paint the same picture (more or less) from both a vertical and horizontal viewpoint. It sometimes helps to decide which is the better format. I also painted the vertical on hot pressed paper and the horizontal on cold pressed paper. I took them both to class and the consensus was that the horizontal was a better painting, the reason being that in the vertical I virtually divided the painting in half, something one should avoid. Of course there is an easy fix, to just crop the vertical watercolor but what I liked about it was the texture in the hills, which works much better for me on hot pressed paper. I am going to repeat the horizontal on hot pressed paper because I do like that format better.

Mt. Tam By Day and Night

I managed to get two paintings done this week. I decided to do the same subject with two different moods. Mt. Tam is situated in Marin County not far from where I live.  The purpose of this first exercise was to experiment with texture, What better subject to choose - hence the closeup view.  With so much texture going on in the mountain area, I decided to keep the sky very bland so as not to fight with, or detract from the textured area. Painted on hot  pressed paper, the watercolors I used were, burnt umber mixed with a little Paynes grey, raw sienna and a very small amount of the sky color which was indigo, to carry the color into the rest of the painting for harmony.  I dribbled granulation medium on the wet paint on the lower part of the mountain and let it run down the page. It is often hit or miss using this technique. The key is using colors that granulate well and not using too much granulation medium.  In the watercolor below I tried to capture the mountain by moonlight using various blues, with a hint of warm color picked up from my palette.

Textured Woodland

This is my first painting of  2012 and I was really pleased with the results first time off. I am trying hard to paint loosely. I like the semi abstract style with just suggestions of what the subject is. I bought an incredible book by Ann Blockley called "Watercolour Textures". She uses interesting techniques to create textures, including watercolor pencils, oil pastels, inktense blocks, india ink etc. Her style is loose and dramatic. I was so impressed with the book that I ordered one of her DVD's so I could see her at work. I am really inspired. I have learned so much from both the book and the DVD.  It has helped me to look at how I approach painting a subject in a totally different way. I am taking this one to class tomorrow for review. I painted this watercolor on Arches hot pressed paper using indian yellow, neutral tint, burnt sienna, sepia ink and green gold  - a new color I tried - which was used in the trees.

Winter Scenes

With winter approaching and all the snow storms back east I decided it was time to do a snow scene. I did the first watercolor on Arches hot pressed paper and the second on Arches cold pressed. I took them to class for critique this week and Jerry Stitt said he felt the snow was too gray and too warm. He thinks snow should be bluer, which he said makes it look colder. He also suggested a verticle behind the shed in the top painting, maybe a windmill or water tower. He always drums into us that you need an opposite thrust to create interest in a painting. I may add this piece soon and will repost it if I do. He also felt that the large tree in the second one was too uniform.  I should have know better on that one, since we are always being told that uniformity is monotonous. He did like the sky in the second painting though.  I personally prefer the first painting because it is more atmospheric and more in my style of painting. I used only three colors for both pieces, French ultramarine, Payne's Grey and light red.

Marsh Abstract

In class last week Jerry Stitt suggested an exercise for working loosely by choosing a subject and painting it as quickly as possible.  I decided to try it but had no definite subject in mind, concentrating more on mood and color, thinking more in the abstract. I used burnt sienna, Indian yellow and neutral tint to create this watercolor in about 15 minutes. I started with the sky since I love painting dramatic skies. It was going to be a simple sketch with a few distant trees and a small foreground. The trees grew a bit more than I intended since I was working wet-in-wet on hot pressed paper. The foreground resembled a lake at first but I thought it a little boring, so I added some texture to make it look more like a marshy scene. I was quite please in the end with the result.

Moonlight on Richardson Bay

  
When the full moon shines over Richardson Bay in Sausalito it creates wonderful reflections on the water. I've always wanted to capture this in a watercolor but wasn't too confident I could pull it off successfully until I found a demonstration recently in a book published in 1973 called The Watercolor Painting Book. It had a section on how to paint moonlight. I used the technique described to capture the view I have from my deck at night. I used the colors suggested in the book which were hooker's green, French ultramarine and burnt sienna. Size is 14" x 10".

Savannah Dawn

In this watercolor I was attempting to capture the vastness of the African Savannah, interrupted only by the lovely Acacia trees which grow throughout Sub Saharan Africa. The terrain is pretty flat, save for these beautiful and uniquely-shaped trees - also known as thorn trees. The Savannah is mostly hot and dry so plants must find ways to retain moisture. Acacias have evolved to do this, by having their leaves divide into dozens of tiny leaflets which can be held horizontally to capture sunlight or vertically to reduce transpiration. I used an indirect glazing method for the sky. Maggie Latham made me realize I forgot to post the materials I used. This was painted on Arches hot-pressed paper using thin glazes of raw sienna, light red, cobalt blue and burnt sienna. The trees and foreground were painted using burnt umber mixed with French ultramarine. I also dropped some  light red into the foreground.

Cottages On The Hill

I'm on an English country scene kick. Mainly because I love the quaint little old cottages one finds in the English countryside. They evoke an atmospheric feeling that I like to create in watercolor.  When I first painted this it was without the tree and broken fence. During critique in class Jerry Still felt it needed the tree and fence to frame the subject and tie the sky to the land area.  I really don't like to go back and "fix" a watercolor because I usually end up ruining it. I need to do this over because I really don't like the tree. This was my third try after erasing the previous two with "magic eraser" - wonderful stuff for fixing a watercolor.  Anyway, a third rub will probably make a hole in the paper, so I need to start from scratch. It will be a good exercise.  I was very pleased with the foreground though. Hope I can repeat it. Size: 14" x 11" on Arches hot pressed paper. I used windsor green, raw sienna, burnt umber, burnt sienna and black india ink.