I had a request from a student on how to mix browns in watercolor. I hope this video I made will help anyone struggling with browns. I did forget to mention in the video that I often use neutral tint mixed with burnt sienna which makes a lovely warm brown.

Shades Of Winter

I painted this watercolor on a gray day in Sausalito, California. We look out over Richardson bay, which leads into San Fracisco bay. I love the neutral tones of the sky and land on days like this. As you can see, I took a lot of artistic license to make the watercolor more appealing. I wanted to show what one can do with a little imagination. I used only two colors, French ultramarine and quanacridone burnt orange. I did add a little white gouache for texture in the dark landscape area. The inspiration was from this photo below taken from my deck.

Fall Colors

It's that time of year again. I love painting the fall colors - reminds me of our time living in Virginia. I donated this watercolor to my local Marin Society of Artists for their annual auction fundraiser. Each time I paint one of these scenes I try out different colors. For this piece I first thoroughly wet the paper and then painted a very diluted wash of oreolin. After it was dry I spattered different combinations of color with different size brushes and then spritzed the spatters with water just slightly to give the spatters uneven shapes. When that was dry I dabbed the piece with scrunched up saran wrap dipped in different colors. I used cad red mixed with new gamboge, raw sienna mixed with burnt sienna, lemon yellow with burnt sienna, oreolin with burnt sienna, and for the browns, burnt sienna mixed with french ultramarine.  I was particularly please with how the brown worked out, also supplying the needed darks to the watercolor.

Mt Tam Mist

 

I don't usually like doing commissions but when someone admires a painting you do that is no longer available, and they request something similar, it becomes a challenge to create a painting with the same mood but that is different from the one they admired. This week I received an email from someone who liked my painting Mist Over Mt Tam. They asked me if I would do a painting of the mountain with a similar "peaceful mood". They wanted it as a gift for a friend who loved to hike on Mt Tam but who was leaving California to live across country. Mt Tam is a very imposing mountain in Marin County and in winter the peak is often shrouded in mist. It makes for a great painting subject. I am pleased with the results of this piece. It's a little abstract while still being recognizable. It's essentially different shades of gray. I used various shades of liquid graphite (comes in a tube) for most of the painting - I was pleased with the subtle textures it created. The trees and sky were painted with Payne's Grey watercolor. Painted on Arches hot-pressed watercolor paper. I always tell people I won't be offended if they don't like a piece because I can always put it up for sale. I almost want to keep this one myself though. I like the soft visual effect.

Dappled Moonlight

Another atmospheric watercolor. Trying to capture the moonlight I see over the bay from my living room window. If I were to do it again I would not put so much detail in the tree on the right. This would be better with just a few abstract strokes. Size is 13.5" x 9.5 inches. An underpainting of raw sienna was followed by using French ultramarine mixed with burnt sienna for the rest of the painting. I used a coarse painters brush for the sea to get the effect of dappled moonlight.

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. 

Dune Evening

I haven't posted in a while - seems like in summer there are so many distractions. I was experimenting with different hues in this watercolor. I actually used opaque cadmium red in the sky, amongst other colors. It ended up being a little dark and I almost abandoned it. So with nothing to lose, I took the magic eraser, tore off a piece so I had an uneven surface, soaked it in water, rung it out and dragged it across the sky to create pieces of light filtering through. I was quite pleased with the result.

Lone Cypress

I painted this watercolor a few months ago but didn't particularly like it so I put it away. My efforts to produce a painting for class this week failed, so I dug this watercolor out of my draw and took it along. Well, to my surprise our instructor, Jerry Stitt, raved about it.  And the rest of the class loved it too. That got me wondering what it was that I didn't like about it. I guess it's just a case of not being painted in my usual, more atmospheric style. It also got me wondering whether I should be considering what others like about my paintings - with a view to selling.  It's a loaded subject. It feels good when I paint something I like and the hope is that a few other people will like it too - maybe even enough to buy the piece. My watercolors that have sold were a mix of what I like painting and some where I was trying other styles with my watercolors. I guess there is always someone out there that will like something you do. I try to marry the skills of painting with marketing my work, but it takes so much of one's time that it's not always easy to balance the two.

A Quiet Place

I took this painting to class last week and the criticism was that the darks needed to be joined, otherwise it was too spotty. Another criticism was that the two pieces of land on either side in the distance were too similar.  I like the watercolor the way it was - because I feel I created this peaceful isolated scene. A  point Jerry always makes in class is that the elements and principles of design are guidelines and not rules. I always try to be mindful of that when creating my watercolors but in this instance I broke the rules and am happy with the results.

Rodeo Lagoon

 

There are a number of lovely unspoiled beaches that belong to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Rodeo beach in Marin County is one of them. As you enter the beach you cross over the lagoon on a small foot bridge.The area is also a bird sanctuary where you can watch egrets, seagulls and ducks and many other birds feed on the rich sea life. I used artistic license with the colors in the marshy landscape. My colors were raw sienna, burnt sienna, indigo and French ultramarine on Fabriano cold pressed paper. I really like the way the colors came out on the Fabriano paper. I think I will buy more of this. I never get results like this on Arches cold pressed paper. That's why I always tend to use Arches hot pressed watercolor paper. On cold pressed the colors seem to soak into the paper and the end result after drying looks washed out. I need to experiment more with different watercolor papers.

More Flowers

I wanted to try another loose flower watercolor since I really need practice in this area. I'm not a realistic painter, I like to do representational flower pieces. I recently bought two books by Ann Blockley, one titled Watercolour Textures and the other, Experimental Flowers In Watercolour.  They are both great books full of wonderful examples for creating texture in watercolors and painting loosely. They inspired me to try this watercolor. I took this painting to class for critique by Jerry Stitt. He liked the texture in the green area which was accomplished by flicking dark paint into the wet watercolor, then using crumpled tissue paper to create the illusion of leaves and greenery. When painting this I was mindful of something Jerry always tells us, "the fewer shapes the better". So although you see three flowers here, they overlap to form one shape. He said that if I had made them separate flowers the painting would have looked spotty.  I was also mindful to make each flower a different size - another point that is is always drummed into us. Whether it be flowers or trees or houses, vary the shapes so they don't become boring. I painted this watercolor on Arches hot pressed paper using scarlet lake, brown madder, windsor green (yellow shade) and burnt sienna.

Solitude

Well I have not posted in a while. Had a few dry weeks when nothing went well.  As you know, I like creating atmospheric scenes and this one is of a quiet landscape in the English Lake District. There are lovely old cottages dotted around the area, sometimes evoking a feeling of remoteness. There is something very peaceful about these scenes that appeals greatly to me. I used indigo, raw sienna, light red and burnt sienna on quarter sheet of 140lb Arches hot pressed paper.

First Light

We have been experiencing the most incredible skies early in the morning lately. Fortunately I get up early enough to see them. For this watercolor I did an underpainting with raw sienna and then used brown madder and French ultramarine mixed with a little payne's grey. I really like the effect the limited palette provides. Size: 12" x 8".

At The Cliff's Edge

I have not posted anything in a while. Had a dry period which seems to happen around this time of year. I am drawn to dramatic landscapes and this scene of a lone tree at the top of a cliff appealed to me. As I described in my previous blog, there are these really tall cliffs as one walks along beautiful Kehoe Beach in west Marin, CA. A number of trees have fallen down the cliff and lay at the bottom, along the beach. This watercolor was also an exercise in creating texture and I was rather pleased with the result. The underpainting was raw sienna over which I used a pale Indigo for the sky. For the cliff I used burnt sienna, burnt umber, french ultramarine and sap green. The distant hills are cobalt blue.

African Bushveld

Since my profile mentions the fact that I am influenced by my time living in Africa as well as other areas of the world, I thought it time to depict an African scene. This watercolor is reminiscent of an area known as the Karoo in South Africa. It is very dry, hot scrubland that hardly ever gets any rainfall. The size is 13.5" X 10". I used raw sienna, aureolin yellow and burnt sienna for the glazed unperpainting and raw umber, french ultramarine, burnt sienna and some alizarin crimson for the details.

Early Dawn

Still more glazing. I think I've found what I want to do with watercolors - for now anyway. I really like the luminous effect of glazing. I think it helps create more depth to even a simple subject. I took a few shortcuts with this one to see if fewer glazes would work as well. I was pleased with the outcome. Even though I used only two colors, indigo and Windsor red, I did at least five glazes with each color to give transparency to the piece.

Fading Light

I used an indirect glazing technique to achieve the background for this tonal watercolor. It takes much more patience because one has to wait for each layer to dry before adding the next one. I'm fairly impatient and usually like to finish a painting in one session.

Mist Over Mt. Tam

I just realized that the last three watercolors I have posted are all in shades of blue. I guess I'm exploring painting winter weather in all its forms. Mt. Tam is a very imposing mountain and one can see it from just about everywhere in southern Marin County. It dominates the landscape. The mountain is often shrouded in mist this time of year and has these lovely blue hues. This is a mix of ultramarine grayed down with Paynes Grey. I really like the various blues one can achieve with this mix. The sky has a hint of pale raw sienna and rose madder under the blue. I will take this watercolor to class this week and see what the critique will be.

Critique: I'm pleased to say that Jerry Stitt really liked this watercolor. He made particular mention of the dark, medium and light values, and the lost and found edges which he felt made the painting work well. For the first time since I have been attending his class, there were no suggestions as to "what would make this a better painting". Hope I can keep this up.