I have to admit, I am on a winter kick. Cold, chill. And loneliness. I don’t tend to paint or photograph people or civilization, but as far as painting goes, I need to get into painting them. I’m doing okay with moving inland water. But buildings, people, and oceans leave me baffled for now.
So, the open spaces of the flatlands between mountain ranges. Harsh weather, blasted heaths, winter and wild weather. The hint of spring.
Today I did what I had hoped to do yesterday, but I painted a temple instead. So, this afternoon, I sat down with my studio palette and decided to take a good look at the yellows I have, use them individually, as well as mix them. The colors include aureolin, new gamboge, raw sienna, cadmium yellow, hansa yellow, quinacridone gold, raw sienna, and “mystery yellow,” named thus because I didn’t label it!
Above are my first paintings, mixing colors and not happy with the results. So, I did pure color studies of the lemons to see what I could get.
Above, pure colors in varying densities to see what they could do. It was quite interesting!
In the studies using only one yellow, I varied the density of the paint from very watery to rather heavy. I did the same in the above picture with sap green.
In this one, I used pure hansa yellow, sap green blended into the yellow, and cobalt blue for the shadows, with some bleed from the lemon. The stem was pure sap green.
Heirloom tomatoes are always interesting – they are rather like aliens in the produce department! Again, limited palette with varying uses of the colors individually and mixed.
Another alien, but this time I created a swatch of the colors as I did the painting.
If you want to scroll through the paintings, click on an image above. I like doing that because I see things in a sequence.
Anyway, I really got a better sense of the yellows and how I might use them. Cadmium yellow, hansa yellow, raw umber and raw sienna are my most-used yellows, but can see where others may be valuable, such as in shadows and so on. Hansa yellow is a cold yellow, in my opinion, and the warmth of the cadmium yellow cannot be beat. For rotten bananas, raw sienna isn’t too bad!
More wet-in-wet work. This time, I paid a bit more attention to the details along with the wet paper and paint. I laid down washes, waited for them to dry, and then laid down wash upon wash. At times I lifted color out while still wet, too. It’s hard to describe what I did, but overall I was more deliberate in my approach to this painting, taking time rather than letting my impatient personality dominate. The result is a more successful painting.
Colors include burnt sienna, Hooker’s green, ultramarine blue, quinacridone gold, and perhaps a touch of sap green and cobalt blue. Limited palettes really help pull a painting together, as well as help you learn what colors, when mixed, produce what new color.
Brushes included a huge round for the main washes, and then a medium / small round, and a rigger brush for the grasses. I got the rigger as a Christmas present, and this is the first time I used it. I practiced on scrap paper, and can see why a lot of people like them! This one is a bit stiff and has a lot of snap to it.
In keeping with my winter themes and white space, here is another “I wish I lived in the snow!” picture!
After a fresh snow, an icy snow or blizzard, the day is filled with sparkles when you look against the sky. In photography, it’s easy to capture – line up the sun, the light, move around, and you get it. In painting, though, it’s a totally different thing. How to express that sparkle? I tried to capture it in the upper left corner by dabbing in colors of blue and black and bits of ink – did it work? I don’t know. On the bits of snow in the lower left, small dots of blue to represent shadows on the white snow. Perhaps that is a bit more successful.
Pen, ink, watercolor, limited palette. Wet on dry. Ink on paper. Ink on painted paper. Wet into wet. A morning mish-mash, but every day I am trying to do something with ink or watercolor. Not always successful, but an everyday activity from which a lot can be learned!
Ink, Yarn & Beer 