Tips and Techniques for Painting in Watercolor
A collection of random notes about my successes and failures as I paint in watercolor
Some days the paintings work, and some days they don’t. Yesterday’s was a real stinker, and I’m trying to figure out why. (Maybe I’ll post a picture of it later.) The scene was a group of backlit trees and a tombstone painted late in the afternoon. The foreground was in complete shadow.
I was very happy with the latest lion that I painted last Thursday (June 2006).
The ninety-plus degree heat and a code red smog alert made the working conditions less than pleasant. The actual sky was light and hazy; I darkened it considerably after I got home.
I did another watercolor outside this morning. Although I wasn’t entirely happy with the results, I did manage to take pictures after each wash. Here’s what I did:
I did this watercolor early in the morning about a week ago at Oakland Cemetery. Finding a shady spot in which to work was a challenge and forced me to work from a radical viewpoint, which made for some dramatic foreshortening. Overall, I was pleased with the result.
I used Arches 140# Rough paper from a 12 x 16 block.
My palette was:
