overcast

The Other Side

With spring here, the hills are green instead of brown, there are flowers by the roadsides, and we have been enjoying 50+ F for several weeks – more to come, and perhaps even rain! Living in a dry land is dull at times, and as it becomes dryer, it becomes duller. So, when the poppies and lupines bloom, it is indeed a time to celebrate.

I came to Wildwood Park looking for them. Did I miss them? I think I must have, but I have seen them along a nearby road.

Despite that, it was good to get out. I took one of our dogs, too; they always enjoy an outing. Today was cool enough for a jacket and shoes and socks. The wind kept blowing my hair into my face and sometimes I would line up a shot only to see my hair in the viewfinder instead of whatever.

Here, I am one side of a deep ravine while the houses in the distance are on the other side, easily a half mile or so from my viewpoint. The bottom of the ravine is a creek which fills with flood waters and can easily kill anyone foolish enough to be in it – a few people have died over the years when the winter rains come. Today, no rain, but the sky was rather leaden, the breeze quirky, and the day just glorious.

A Lonely Road (Watercolor)

I decided to give A Lonely Road (Gouache) a try in watercolor as that was my original intention with the painting.

It was quite interesting to do so as I used the same paper I used for my gouache, but the paper had less tooth than my usual CP watercolor paper, being more like hot press, which is very smooth. This was American Journey paper, which is very nice, and is somewhere between HP and CP for texture. This makes a difference when painting with watercolors.

Once more I feel like my DOF is not working in watercolor. I am not quite sure why, but it seems to be I lay down a color and then lay down more, and more, and even more for the distant objects. Unlike gouache, watercolor’s transparency makes each succeeding layer darker. At times a glaze of very thin color can pull a watercolor together, but not here. The dark distant hills on the right suggest a spot of cloud shadow, and the brighter one on the left a bit of sunshine. The sky suggests otherwise. And it looks like there is a sleeping or dead sheep in the field on the right!

There are bits and pieces of this painting I like, and the colors really do evoke a rather damp day when autumn is beginning to set in. The fact is, I find watercolor inherently more difficult than gouache simply because more pre-planning and strategizing than with gouache. This why I enjoy watercolor so much – it is so hard! The colors are just wonderful at times, and that is one of the joys of watercolor. Gouache, while beautiful, when done with less water and thicker paint, doesn’t have some of the same light as watercolor

So, for the sake of comparison, I am lining up the value study and gouache from yesterday with today’s watercolor. Click on the value study below to click through the three if you want to do some comparing.

Maybe a pastel should come along tomorrow?

The last week has been so hot- nearly 100F for several days – and sticky with 9% humidity! Yeah, laugh, but in a dry climate you become so aware of moisture, it’s absurd.

Right now, as I write this, the sky is yellowish with smoke from the nearby forest fires. The entire western US is ready to go up in flames, and when I think of our upcoming road trip, all of which is through the western US, I wonder if anything will be left for us to see.

Thus, an overcast day is just what I would like to see. Rain would be great.

This was taken with the Olympus XA4 and Fuji Pro 400H film.