Watercolor Painting of "Lake Powell Memories"
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| I did this painting specifically for a special benefit art show for the "Little Heroes Foundation" held in December 2009. The show featured a number of my paintings of Lake Powell. |
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1. Lake Powell is one of my favorite painting subjects. I love to paint rocks, and I love to paint water. I can indulge myself in both at Lake Powell in southern Utah. |
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2. I am using Arches 140 lb. cold press watercolor paper for this painting. I first lighlty sketched in the shapes of the cliffs using a 4h pencil, then started the painting by using a wet into wet technique to paint the sky area. My Hake brush serves as a good tool for applying large washes quickly. |
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3. The sky is done wet-in-wet using Ultramarine blue, Cadmium red light, and Yellow Ochre. I allow the pigments to mingle freely on the paper to get the grays of the clouds. This process takes less than five minutes, and I leave it alone. While the sky is drying I begin the basic washes on the sandstone cliffs. I allow the brush to scumble across the paper to create a sense of texture. My goal at this point is to give an underlay of the medium values. After they dry I will add additional glazes to build up the value and color. |
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4. You can see the shapes start to form as I add darker values in the shadow areas. Notice how I reduce the values on the distant cliffs to give them the appearance of being far away. |
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5.With the cliffs in place I can begin working on the water. I am careful to leave places where the water surface is broken by ripples and waves and the blue of the sky is reflected. The darker reflections of the rocks are painted wet on dry paper, so the edges will be hard. |
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6. I am using a smaller round brush to paint detail in the reflections. The pallettes are made by Eldajon.
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7. With the small brush I fill in some of the white areas that I left using the negative painting technique. I am using mostly Ultramarine blue wih a touch of yellow for the sky reflections. "Lake Powell Memories" |
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8. Next to the watercolor painting is my thumbnail value study and a reference photograph that I shot at Lake Powell. I usually tape them to my board while working for quick reference. It's evident that I use a lot of artistic license to create drama and emotion. That is what an artist should do. The artist is an interpreter of nature not a copiest. "Lake Powell Memories" |
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"Lake Powell Memories"
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