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.

Kehoe Beach

West Marin County, California has some of the most beautiful unspoiled beaches. Kehoe Beach is one of them. We took a walk with the family and our two dogs on this pristine stretch of beach. There was a slight mist over the beach that added to the peacefulness. High cliffs were to our right and the sea to the left. We could see cows high up on the edge of the cliff - no fence. I used artistic license with regards to the colors. I used indigo mixed with raw sienna, brown madder and some burnt sienna with French ultramarine.

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.

Storm Clouds

Last week in class Jerry's demonstration painting was of large clouds over water. I liked the subject matter and wanted to give it a try but decided to paint the clouds with a landscape backdrop. I am working on another watercolor with storm clouds over an estuary, and will post that next. I wanted to use neutral colors to create the storm clouds, which I find interesting. I used indigo and burnt sienna with a touch of raw sienna in places - so it was a very limited palette. Size is 12" X 8".

Desert Twilight

Trying out different color combinations in glazing. It's difficult to decide in advance what colors will work well together to give the end result one is trying to achieve. I think this one worked quite well. Laura's comment got me thinking that I must remember to list the colors I use. For this one I used a light glaze of Raw Sienna and several glazes of brown madder and ultramarine blue. After glazing I painted in the landscape with brown madder mixed with paynes grey and used paynes grey neat for the dark bushes and splatters in the foreground.

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.

Morning Light

I wanted to try a very limited palette to create a mood painting. I used mostly raw sienna and paynes grey with a little burnt umber in the foreground. I got the idea for this color scheme from one of my John Blockley books. He does lovely mood landscapes, especially when painting English country cottages. He is a master at creating mood in his paintings.

Thank you Saundra for the sunshine blog award. I found it really difficult to choose who to pass this award to. That got me thinking and I would like to award it to all of the artists that follow my blog. They are all unique and deserving of this award. Thank you all for following my blog.

UPDATE: I took this watercolor to class today and Jerry's only comment (and I knew he was going to say this) was that with all the horizontal planes it needed a vertical plane to create tension and interest. While I get the point of this, I was aiming more at atmosphere and felt a large vertical would detract from the serenity of the watercolor. He covered my painting with a piece of perspex and drew in a near tree, which confirmed my feelings. I don't think I will take the advice this time.

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.

Watercolorist Linda Kemp

One of the many watercolor books I've bought over the years is Linda Kemp's "Watercolor Painting Outside The Lines." I was so intrigued by her technique of negative painting that I had to try it. Her demonstrations make it look so easy, but I have yet to master the technique. I like her work so much that I wanted to share it with my fellow artists. This painting by Linda is an example of her technique.

Here also is a link to her website where you can see more of her paintings, view a short demonstration of negative painting, or order her DVD or best-selling book, and see her list of workshop schedules.

For a complete demonstration of two negative paintings - one a landscape and the other a Wisteria plant - scroll down at this site and look for her name. It is really worth watching all eight demonstration clips. It's a totally different approach to watercolor painting.