Autumn Glow - Day Sixteen of the 30/30 Challenge

Autumn Glow, Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press Paper, 6"h x 6"w, 2015 #18

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Day Sixteen of the challenge -- I wanted to try something different today and started this one on paper without a reference image, just playing with soft washes of contrasting cool and warm colors that are loosely divided into complimentary color families, being careful to leave enough areas of white paper. When the applied washes mingled on wet paper, I titled the painting in different ways to encourage the blending of complimentary colors in certain areas, and prevent them from blending so that higher saturation could be retained in other areas, especially near where the reserved white is, as I could like to design my center of interest near these areas. When this initial wash dried, I looked at the resulted color-value shapes and saw rocks and back-lid foliage in the glowing autumn light in the foreground, and dark woods behind it. So I enhanced this imagery with further glazing on dry paper, careful not to lose all the soft edges created in the first wet-in-wet wash (it is so easy to overglaze and lose all the soft edges before one realizes!). I also lifted light linear shapes hinting stems and branches of fir trees in the dark background, thus suggesting a dense growth of evergreen forest behind the rock and center pine tree. To counter balance the dominating vertical shapes of trees, I added horizontal shapes at the bottom of the image -- interesting shapes in light and dark glazes overlapping each other, be them suggestion of rock ledges, water or reflections. I am quite excited about this project, as it is very different procedure from how I usually work, and forces me to think more abstractly about the balance of values, shapes and lines. It is from inside out, not outside in. Think I will try it a few more times for the 30/30 challenge...