Patterns In The Landscape

This is a small 5"x7" test piece I did to see if the colors would work together for a larger piece. Sometimes I end up liking the test piece better than the larger watercolor. Have not attempted the larger piece yet but will soon. I used Indigo, yellow ochre and burnt umber on Fabriano cold pressed watercolor paper.  The textures in the landscape were achieved using cling film. I like to create a semi-abstract section in each of my watercolors.

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.

Mist Over Mt Tam

I am currently working on a series of watercolors depicting Mt Tamalpais to enter in a local gallery exhibition where the theme is "Under The Spell of Mt. Tam." I can enter up to three paintings, so I thought I would try to approach the subject in three very different ways. Mt. Tam is a very imposing mountain that can be seen from most areas in Marin. At it's highest point it is 2,574 feet and is often shrouded in mist - making a great subject for painting. Above is my first attempt with the mist coming down over the mountain.  I want to also do an abstract version and a night scene incorporating the mountain. My next two posts will follow this one - if they are successful that is. Update: this piece made it into the exhibition along with Serpentine Mountain.

Through The Woods

This watercolor was inspired by a black and white photograph - a good exercise in being creative with color. The photo was also a good guide for the lights and darks. I took a lot of artistic license changing shapes and leaving out a water scene in the background and replacing it with distant trees. I used quinacridone gold, cadmium yellow, cobalt blue and Prussian blue and sepia ink for the textures in the foreground.

Winter Glow

More experimenting with acrylic inks. I feel I need a lot of improvement still and need to branch out a bit. I do like the colors in this experiment though. For any of you who have never seen Ann Blockley's acrylic ink paintings, they are definitely worth a visit, as is all of her work.  Click on her name to go to her blog post. There is a lovely acrylic ink painting just below the post for her latest book - which I will definitely order. She is a great inspiration for the kind of watercolors I like painting.

Mystic Glade

I was lucky enough to get two nice gift certificates for Christmas to my favorite local art store. It is fun to browse around and buy materials for experimenting without having to be conscious of the cost. In 2013 I started to experiment with acrylic inks and had some successes which I have posted previously on my blog. I bought a few more colors this year and was excited to do more experimenting. The first two attempts were not that successful, but I was pleased with this third try. I found that it worked better if I applied a layer of gesso to the watercolor paper and let it dry before applying the inks.  Playing around like this really helps one loosen up.

Autumn Symphony

It's that time of year again. One of the things I miss most since moving from the east to the west coast is how the leaves change color in the fall.  What I don't miss is having to rake them up - but it is a beautiful sight while it lasts.The photos of the different stages accidentally got deleted so I will describe them for you.

Stage 1:  I wet 140lb Saunders Waterford CP paper and painted a layer of aureolin randomly over the sheet.  Before it dried I splattered transparent yellow and quinacridone burnt orange mixed with aureolin into the wet paint for the first layer of texture and let this dry. 

Stage 2:  I proceeded to splash more Indian yellow, transparent yellow and a mixture of Quinacridone burnt orange and aureolin onto the sheet. I spritzed this lightly with a spray bottle which changes the round dots to random shapes that more resemble leaves. I let this dry completely. 

Stage 3: For the next to final stage I crumpled up some saran wrap into a ball and dipped it into all of the same colors - plus some Daniel Smith olive green to add some darks - and dabbed this all over the piece. When this was dry I brushed off the masking fluid and painted the tree trunks and branches with a mixture of quinacridone burnt orange mixed with French ultramarine which makes a very nice grey.  I added a few more dabs of paint to make the colors a little richer. The final step was making a darker mixture to paint the markings on the bark. 

Color Selections

 I often do small sketches to try out different techniques and color combinations before starting a larger painting. The one above is 5" x 7". I was playing around with the new acrylic inks that I bought and was experimenting mixng them in with regular watercolors. The cliff is made up mostly of the acrylic inks. The watercolor below is just a little larger but was also done to test color selections. I find it very useful to do these small sketches.  It also is a good exercise in loosening up because I do them rather quickly. I usually use these as greeting cards for family and friends. I cut and fold watercolor paper a little larger than the sketch and then glue the painting to the front of the card. My friends and family love getting these original greeting cards. However, I really like these two and decided to put them up for sale on my web site.

Stormy Sky Over The Bay

We've had some pretty stormy weather recently. Thought I would try to catch the mood over San Francisco bay during this period. I used hookers green mixed with Payne's grey for the sky and sea, and Raw Sienna for the beach. Size: 14" x 11".

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.

Marsh Sunset

This was another watercolor that was almost abandoned. I had worked the sky too much, adding too many glazes and it was rather boring.  I let it sit on my easel for weeks until I realized I had nothing to take to class Thursday. Since I had nothing to lose, I again took the magic eraser and gently scraped away a bit of the dark area in the sky for some lights to shine through and I added the M. Graham quanacridone rust in the lower half of the sky. I also decided it needed more reeds in the foreground to create more interest, so added those too. I'm rather pleased that I have been able to salvage two watercolors that otherwise would have gone on the trash pile.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A really useful watercolor blog

I found this really good blog by Joe Cibere who shares his expertise with other watercolorists. As he states, "This site is for students and artists of all levels to share information and hopefully a little of themselves. Please feel free to ask questions, make comments and enjoy. The goal is “to achieve satisfaction, not perfection”.