Dirty Snow

Well, it is winter, so snow shows up for some reason.  New snow is so nice – but old snow is dreary, especially as winter begins to lose the charm it had at Christmas!  Slushy, mushy, grey, dirty, muddy.

I decided to make up a scene – with buildings both wooden and brick, with telephone poles, and the grey mist of a city beyond.  As a painting by itself, it’s a failure, but adding a few lines helped it out a bit.  People will appear when the weather clears . . .

A Dutch Landscape – After Edo Hannema

Today was a day of “firsts.”  I decided to paint a big painting for me – 16×20 inches.  I also chose to use a more professional paper than I have been; here, 140# cold press Arches.

I wanted to test out how Arches handles water – lots of water.  Hannema is the master of the wash and wet paper approach.  His current paper is Saunders Waterford, which is different, of course, from Arches.  I think the Arches handled the water really well.  I, on the other hand, still need to master my washes.  Blooms are visible here and there, and I need to learn how to control those or eliminate them if I find them later on.

The palette of colors I used was initially what Hannema used:  ultramarine blue, alizarin crimson, burnt sienna, and raw sienna.  Because I did not like greens I was getting, I threw in some sap green.  If I had used yellow ochre, perhaps my greens would have been more satisfactory – something to make a mental note of to try next time around.

I always learn from a video.  As I have mentioned, water is one thing I am working on, along with buildings.  Today, I wanted to just work with a new paper and a lot of water.  The study was successful altogether methinks.

Below is Edo Hannema’s painting tutorial:

Paradise Lost

Another building!  This time the simple composition helped – not a lot of corners.

For the palm tree, I used a dagger brush.  I also used it for the building and the grass.  I’ve never used one before, but thought it would be perfect for the fronds.  A lot of fun can be had with this brush – glad I added it to my brush collection.