As I mentioned when the subject of my latest watercolor painting came up, ME nailed it. The photograph of floating orange clouds was the beginning of an autumnal scene. What with getting ready for construction, dealing with the initial results of the work, and a temperamental dryer, I didn't do a very much painting this week, and the little I did, I didn't record.
As you know I am in the very elementary phase of learning how to use this medium, and I certainly did learn today! For reference sake, here are the two version of the same subject:
As strange as it may seem, I actually like the way they look right now. Oh, not as examples of representational art, but as abstract art.
Anyway, you'll have use your imagination here. I'll be talking first about the work on the right hand side. This past week I painted the ground at the bottom with a few light washes since part of that area is in the sun. Then behind the tree trunks (can you see them?), I put in a very dark wash where the wood are the deepest and darkest. That's as far as I got on this one. When Sharon saw what I had accomplished, she explained that I was using an oil painting technique (again!). Since oil paints are opaque and the last layer of paint is what ones sees, one paints the darkest colors first and works outward to the lightest colors. With watercolors since the naked paper provides the lightest tone and some watercolors are truly transparent, one paints the lightest colors first and builds up to the darkest. That means that today I tried to reverse the steps I had begun so you now see the very light washes of colors that will be behind the trees (of course, some areas will darken as I paint over them). You'd think I would have really gotten that by now, but - well, I guess I hadn't!
The painting on the left shows some of the same work done during the week with the exception of the dark wash. I was able to take advantage of today's lesson with this one. What you will see on the left hand side of this painting are some horizontal brush strokes in blue (if you enlarge the photo, you will see more). Those are there to remind myself that these particular evergreens have a horizontal habit of growth and that they stretch irregularly. It's too easy to seek balance where there is none. You know, your first drawings of trees may have had two branches on the right, a matching two on the left, and the branches were the same length and width. Trees are beautiful but they can be "messy" especially when they have competition for light as tree in a woods frequently do.
And by telling you all that, I am hoping to imprint it in my conscious mind, and to remind myself not to be guided by my or-so-even-and-straight brush strokes!
you're absolutely right (imagine that, says your smart @$$ friend) if you look at any tree that has grown next to another one, the branches are not perfect. Sometimes whole sides of trees have very little while the other side is full. It all depends on what they grown next to. I would think that makes it harder to get a painting to look real, because I'd want to make the perfect tree which rarely exists out of our mind and in a yard or forest.
ReplyDeleteI love both the paintings. Of course, that might be because I also love trees and they are their prettiest in the fall of the year.