Evening Reflections

Evening Reflections, Watercolor on Arches #140 Rough Paper, 7"h x 10"w, 2016 #16

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Evergreen Notes - 30/30 Challenge 2016

Evergreen Notes, Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press Paper, 7"h x 12"w, 2016 #13

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Playing with limited palette and want to create the illusion of fog in the background. To add warmth in the foreground I used a muted yellow-brown which compliments the overall blue-purple color scheme of the painting. The painting was done from a quick 30-minute study on site when hiking in the high sierras. The way those tall mountain hemlock and silver fir trees dance in the wind left such a strong impression on my mind, that even now I can still just close my eyes and see it...

Dusk over Marsh - Day Twenty-Eight of the 30/30 Challenge

Dusk over Marsh, 

Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press Paper, 6"h x 6"w, 2015 #30

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Day Twenty-Eight of the challenge -- a little plein air piece at sunset, done mostly with my 1" slanted bristle brush. I am falling in love with this big, stiff brush that is not at all capable of doing any details, but carries so much pigment and water and does soft wet-in-wet blending and rough edges both so well! When the sun is setting and the light changing fast, it is really handy! I actually did several different studies before the sun completely sinks under the horizon, but I love this one the most -- it did capture the glorious sky that I saw, which made all the draw grass near shore literally glows with dragon's blood red! Again, this is done in a quiet back corner of the shoreline park of mountain view. I can never get tired of painting the beautiful wetlands in the bay area...

Morning Fog, Tamalpais - Day Eighteen of the 30/30 Challenge

Morning Fog, Tamalpais,

 Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press Paper, 6"h x 6"w, 2015 #20

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Day Eighteen of the challenge -- Trying to catch up today but was not quiet happy with the other painting I am working on, so maybe I will get a fresh eye tomorrow morning... For this one I again worked from a previous Plein Air piece, changing the format from horizontal to square, allowing more space for the receding mountain ranges. As the evergreen-covered hills gradually get closer, I added more Quinacridone Burnt Orange to warm up the color, and put down the last two tall fir trees in the foreground with thick paint on a quite worn-out old brush to give some more interesting edges. The whole painting was done in one wetting of the paper, but I was not too happy with my first two attempts of it, so this is the third one. Sometimes you can wash off freshly applied watercolor paints and start over on the same piece of the paper, but I find often the surface sizing would largely come off this way, and granulating pigments don't quite settle the same way, so for a small piece like this I would just start anew on a fresh clean sheet. Luckily the shapes worked out quite well the third time... Now it is really time for bed! :-)

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...