Tag: trees

Shades of Grey?

Recently it has brought to my attention that my watercolors have very intense colors with strong contrast – too strong colors and clashing contrast. It is an interesting thought. Often I feel my colors are a bit over the top, but after working hard to get rid of mud and blandness, I worked to have more pure colors. Now that I can do this, perhaps it is time to scale back a bit. This means, the way I see it, is to create more middle tone values in general throughout a painting, and then have areas of light and dark.

So, let’s begin. On Pixabay I downloaded an image which was not too complicated but, in color, provided a pleasant array of colors and a few areas of bright and dark while the overall tone was middle values

As you can see, the shadow in the left middle ground is strong, as is the tree on the right, as well as bits of the buildings and trees. I converted this to grey scale to see how well it held up to my perceptions in color to actual black and white.

My suspicions were confirmed! My eyes did not deceive me! And, if you are interested, I simply desaturated the photograph by reducing the vibrancy and saturation in Lightroom Classic.

From here, on to my watercolor. I chose a limited but coherent palette of about 6-7 colors – yellow, green, red, blue, browns. Which ones I chose, I don’t recall, but I worked to create secondary and tertiary colors while I painted. My painting is meant to replicate values in the painting as well as make it recognizable without painstaking details. Below is my color rendition.

My painting looks a bit more dynamic than the photograph, I think, but it is interesting to see how it looks in black and white – again done in LR by reducing vibrancy and saturation.

Overall, most of this painting is in middle values of grey with some areas of bright and dark. So, I did achieve what I set out to do. I plan to work on this a bit to see if I like my paintings better – and, I expect I probably will. Working with color is challenging as colors distract so easily from value!!

Thoughts?

Watercolors, Hahnemuhle CP paper, 9×12.

Transition

Even though seasonal changes in SoCal are subtle, elsewhere in the state, further north or at higher elevations, shifts in color and temperature are more apparent. The tilt of the earth changes the light, winter pushes trees to change colors and lose their leaves. Temperatures drop. While today is about 73F, two weeks ago it was in the 50s (no snow, yay!) and nights are chilly. So, let’s celebrate the shift of summer to fall, and now fall to winter.

For me, this is a rather complex painting. Rocks and sandy shore, trees and brush, water, sky and reflections in the creek. Remembering the “rule” – simple big shapes, moderate shapes, details last, I worked by creating the most noticeable areas – or certainly the ones I felt could be the most challenging. This meant the creek in particular – keeping the water marked out. As well as that, the shoreline in the foreground coupled with bits of sandy shore on the right. After that, the rocks on the left and foliage of trees. I was all over the place working larger to smaller, light or dark, and then on to light or dark details.

Overall, I think this painting worked out. Analyzing its complexity and then breaking it into its larger components and areas of color helped. It is still not quite what I would have liked to produce, but much of it did succeed.

Watercolor, Hahnemuhle paper, about 10×12.

Halibut Point

Halibut Point State Park is along the coast of Massachusetts. According to the park’s website:

Halibut Point is a granite edge between the Atlantic Ocean and the mainland. On this rocky coast, people have quarried the robust stone, built military structures to defend the nation, and today the park supports a wide variety of wildlife.


On a clear day, visitors to Halibut Point State Park will be able to see Mount Agamenticus, located 40 miles away in Maine, and the Isles of Shoals off the coast of New Hampshire. You can explore the park’s trails and tide pools, picnic on the rocky ledges, and learn about the park’s World-War II history and the Cape Ann granite industry history.

What draws me to Halibut Point is the quarry, its cliffs, and the geometric properties of the stones themselves. Water is everywhere. All these present challenges as the weather changes or the view changes. The East Coast is definitely different than the West Coast!

My focus here is the graphic quality of sky, land, sea, trees, stone, more water. The scene is quite simple but the detail can be a bit overwhelming – I want to be specific and show every leaf and grain of stone and wave in the water. I needed to make it very simple for it to work, keeping the sky and distant land and sea simple before moving to the middle ground trees.

And, I think it does. I like the way my trees tuned out – masses of greens in different value to add depth and suggest the denseness of its growth. The rocks of the quarry walls are filled with straight lines which can be vertical, horizontal, or diagonal. The color of the stone is a rather warm white to ochre, but light, too, renders it warmer or cooler. Finally, the water itself in the foreground. A calm water, but a bit of wind. Reflections in the water and ripples on the surface. More detail, but hopefully not too much.

Watercolor, Arches rough 140#, 10×14.

Morning Walk

I don’t know if I have published this image before . . . . I have a feeling I did, but cannot find it. Of course, with all the stuff I have here on IY&B, it makes sense.

I painted this a few years ago. I worked really hard to get soft tones and paints. I had been working mostly in acrylics when I picked up the oils and was used to the hardness I seem to produce with acrylics. So, with the blendability of oils, that was my focus of the exercise.

The results here have been sitting around for ages with the thought the painting could use a bit of work. Looking at it now, it seems finished enough. I am pleased with the moodiness and sense of a damp woodland as well as how you can tell it is a misty day by the colors of the sky through the trees.

Oils, 10×14 canvas panel.

Poplars

I don’t know why, but I always thought these were called “plane trees,” but it turns out they are poplars. We don’t have them here in SoCal. The ones we do have that look similar – in the sense they are narrow trees that grow tall – can be a type of juniper or eucalyptus. I am really drawn to these trees because of their fine branches and leaves which change in the fall.

If you read my blitherings, you know that I am enrolled in an oil / acrylic painting class which meets weekly, and have been in it for several months. I chose oils as they can be worked on over several days with the paint remaining wet over a period of time. What I like about oils is they blend easily and a softness can be achieved (by me, at least) that I can never get when I use acrylics. In this painting, I worked on both simplification and abstraction of various elements of the painting as well as atmospheric perspective. I only considered this painting “finished” when I added some squiggles in the water to suggest movement.

Overall, I am pleased with my results. I have spent several months gazing at it. It never seemed done until those little squiggles showed up. Crazy, huh?

Oils, 12×16, cotton canvas panel