Another drive-by watercolor
Saturday, January 21st, 2012Treated myself to another drive by watercolor yesterday…with some of the work tweeked in the studio this AM. It’s a spot near where I needed to go anyway, and so I timed my trip to give myself the opportunity to get this under way.
as yet untitled watercolor, 12 x 15″
I love the warmth of the light as it’s descending through the atmospheric filter, (which I’m sure has a technical name), and it’s especially tricky to paint in transparent watercolor. Added to that, the effect’s over before the paper is dry, so you only get one shot at it. So it’s a bit crazy sometimes.
I’m beginning to consider a modified approach to some of this, combining a good pencil drawing and a small watercolor sketch, and doing the actual painting from those notes and imagination. A different game, and I believe in some ways a better one if I can work it out.
I’m going off on a late afternoon expedition in the same area now, so this is a brief post.
The painting is about 80% complete. I plan to add a couple small figures and do some re-designing of the light and dark patterns in the foreground now that I have the colors figured out. I’ve made an effort to build the paint surface heavily in some of this area, and that will require some removal of paint to accomplish, so I expect to take this into the studio for the final working out and completion of the piece.