Lately I am not interested in pretty pictures so much as I am in simplifying or working on specific techniques in watercolor. Here, the main goals were the foreground rocks – making simple but still suggestive of a bit of an outcropping – and a sense of wind on the water and reflections of the trees. Well, the rocks turned out to my liking, the waves on the water okay, but the reflections are a total flop. More careful planning next time around!
Watercolor, Arches 140# CP, 9×12.
It is always good to break up your routine. I have been sewing a lot over the last few days, and I am now ready for a change. I am also contemplating modifications to what I was making, namely pockets for a kit car. While I contemplate that, other things prevail! Today, I did all those fun things you have to do – specifically, clean house. A friend is coming in from overseas tomorrow, and I have no idea if he will be coming to visit, so I figured I better get it done. Who wants to welcome a guest to a dusty, dirty mess?
But messes are not really interesting to me. Color is.
So, back to the rocks in a quick sketchbook painting. In the US and elsewhere, some lake shores are not covered with soft sand, but are home to boulders and rocks at the edge of a forest. Trees fall and die, water freezes and thaws, snow and ice and heat and sun all wreak havoc as storms of all sorts come and go. I love the wildness of these places and their lack of order and tidiness imposed by civilization.
Today I wanted to express rocks in a more abstract manner – suggesting boulders and rocks. Fallen trees, too, and the edge of the summer as it moves into autumn. I splashed on some light washes in the trees and on the shoreline after doing the sky, and from there worked with negative painting to create the rocks and boulders.
I rather like the rocks, but in general, the painting is nothing much – I just like to paint some sort of picture when I am practicing things.
Lake Lundy is a lovely area in the Eastern Sierras of California. Colors, water, and stunning mountains make for a wonderful place to visit!
I tried to capture the sense of mist rising from a lake in the early morning. Dry brush seemed to be the best solution, but I think I sort of missed it (hahahaha). I used a square, flat brush, moving up and down and sideways. The thing is, it wasn’t really foggy and blurred, but rather defined in the image.
Feels good to be painting again!
California is not all joyful sunshine and playing on the beaches. Fog is a large part of the coastal environment. It is known as “May grey” and “June gloom.” This morning I woke up to it . . . . inspiration for a foggy lake in the frozen (or not so frozen) north.
I’m still focused on water. Today I wanted fog and water and hoped to use very wet paint thinned to mostly water. I also wanted to work with wet-in-wet in the attempt to catch the softening of edges, increasingly more blurred and colorless, to denote distance. A dull, muted foreground with intense color to add to depth of field. I think it all worked out pretty good.
Fabirano 25% cotton paper, 9×12, neutral tint, sap green, Hooker’s green, phthalo green, Payne’s grey, quinacridone gold, yellow ochre, ultramarine blue, burnt sienna.
Ink, Yarn & Beer 