Mt. Tam Mist

I like painting Mt. Tamalpais - or Mt Tam as we call it - in the different seasons. It looks so different in each season. It is often shrouded in mist which gives it a mysterious quality. In summer the scrub dries out and becomes a golden wheat color  - as can be seen in my Mt. Tam Peak watercolor.

Autumn Glow

I had a few weeks of not liking anything that I painted - painter's block I guess.  So I was thinking how to change course and come up with something totally different. I was thinking of the time I lived on the east coast and how lovely the fall colors were. I still wanted my watercolor to be more representational than realistic though. I started out by masking the tree trunks and glazing the paper with a pale yellow, followed by lots of splattering with different shades of yellow.  When that was dry I removed the masking fluid and scrunched up some saran wrap, dipped it into various shades and dabbed them onto the page.  I'm pleased with the result and think it worked out well.

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. 

California Summer

I always start off painting my skies, trying to make them as moody and atmospheric as possible and then decide from there what I want to add to the watercolor.  When I took this to class without a title it was interesting to hear what others saw in the piece. Someone said it looked like an approaching storm, which really surprised me since I had painted mostly blue sky.  I thought it was not atmospheric enough for my liking.  Our instructor thought it looked a little like the Australian outback.  Hmmm.  It reminds me a little of the dry summers here in norther California, so for now I'm going to call it California Summer but may change it if I come up with something better.

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.

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.

Morning Light

This was a lesson in how to salvage a painting and turn it into something else. It started off as a seascape. I had taken a photo looking out across the bay with a sliver of light coming through the clouds and reflecting  a sliver of what looked like silver light on the sea. After painting the watercolor I realized I had not made the sea dark enough to get the sliver of reflected light to glow.  I made the mistake of going back into the piece to try and fix this and in doing so, overworked it. I have learned over the years that you should never go back into a sky to try and fix things and I think the same applies to the sea. At first I thought of abandoning the piece and starting again, but I liked the sky so much I decided to turn it into a landscape to salvage it.  I took it to class where it was well received so I'm pleased I did not throw it away.

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.