Heyaz; since ordering a first-ever batch of professional watercolors maybe a month ago, there has been some resistance on my part to work with them. It's just not a medium I'm used to working with, and it'll take time and effort to learn them like the back of my hand. There was also the issue of lack of suitable support to do any painting on (sadly, acrylic gesso on hot-pressed illustration board does not a good substitute for cold-pressed or NOT make), but that's been temporarily overcame. And then there's just lack of experience with the medium and most of the colors, and painting in a way that is wholly different to what I was doing with acrylics before. So far, tho, I'm liking where this is going. Very much.
I did this one from start to finish yesterday, finally dredging up the courage to experiment with the watercolors as best as possible. Sadly no reference was used; I'd of painted something from outside but there were kids running about and it was somewhat sweltering. The first thing I decided was to accept that these weren't quite the colors I originally planned to buy. I wanted more subdued earths, cooler unsaturated colors that verged towards neutral, but the colors I ordered (with the possible exception of Shadow Green) are anything but neutrals. Granted, in light enough washes and mixed together well any group of colors can produce neutrals, but I'm talking 'strong, clear' neutrals here, not muddy messes (which is the usual result of that aforementioned type of thinking).
For the piece I stuck with Burnt Sienne, Ultramarine Deep Blue, Rose Madder, Cobalt Blue, Indian Yellow, Permanent Alizarin Crimson and Ivory Black. The PAC came in accidentally b/c I thought it was the Rose Maddar :P. Anyhow, it sounds like a big palette (at least for me, I'm used to sticking with maybe 3-4 colors max), but the Cobalt was only for laying a thin ground and Ivory Black (we won't mind the "don't use black" rule of thumb this time,..personally I'd of preferred a deeper near-neutral purple but I don't have the paint to mix it) for deeper shadows. So that brings the primary batch down to 5. There were also some interesting things I learned about the paints here.
Rose Maddar is a STRONG color. "A little bit goes a long way" or so the saying has it. It threatened to overpower the other colors quite easily and often, but thankfully the very nature of watercolors kept it from being too big an issue for so long. I also like its intensity. Other Rose Maddars may be different, but I'd consider the one I use the "romantic's red", or a ruby red in tone. I probably lucked out getting this red b/c it and Ultramarine Deep make a nice saturated purple.
Cobalt has some unique uneven spread properties when used in heavily diluted washes. I'm sure I read of why this is the case somewhere before, but I can't recall the text from heart. Altho both it and Ultramarine are popular for skies, I probably prefer Cobalt for more pure, "early afternoon" skies, like where the sun is more prominent, and Ultramarine as a base elsewhere.
Burnt Sienne...the one I have is a bit more reddish in undertone than I thought it'd be, and that was a reason why I pushed for the picture to have a reddish tonal range (like I said, Rose is powerful even in little bits). It works very well in a more muted fashion w/ Shadow Green in creating neutral browns tho (sadly that's not present in this picture).
Ultramarine Deep, is a stronger blue than Cobalt. Deeper too. I'm interested in seeing more of what it can do. Burnt Sienne seems to knock it back in strength and neutralize it more..since I'm interested in more neutral-focused pieces, I'll definitely explore that in some future efforts.
Indian Yellow is a very nice 'cool' yellow (I consider it cool anyway, compared to a Cadmium). The oranges it can create w/ Maddar aren't so bright, but they worked for this picture. I wonder if I can create a more workable neutral orange by small mixes of Burnt Sienne or Shadow Green into the equation...we shall see.
I'd talk about the other three colors more, but I didn't use them extensively in this one, so maybe when I do a painting w/ them as dominant fixtures, we'll talk about 'em then.
Hopefully you enjoyed the picture and the write-up; this was fun as a testing exercise and I'm already looking into getting more Strathmore watercolor paper (it's what I used for this piece) to continue w/ more, and save the Arches panels for serious work. If there's time in the week, I'd love to try another painting to get even more comfortable with the medium. But until then, just be awesome and do you. I'll do the same. L8r.
""Click for fullsi--" Yeah, that's redundant."
I did this one from start to finish yesterday, finally dredging up the courage to experiment with the watercolors as best as possible. Sadly no reference was used; I'd of painted something from outside but there were kids running about and it was somewhat sweltering. The first thing I decided was to accept that these weren't quite the colors I originally planned to buy. I wanted more subdued earths, cooler unsaturated colors that verged towards neutral, but the colors I ordered (with the possible exception of Shadow Green) are anything but neutrals. Granted, in light enough washes and mixed together well any group of colors can produce neutrals, but I'm talking 'strong, clear' neutrals here, not muddy messes (which is the usual result of that aforementioned type of thinking).
For the piece I stuck with Burnt Sienne, Ultramarine Deep Blue, Rose Madder, Cobalt Blue, Indian Yellow, Permanent Alizarin Crimson and Ivory Black. The PAC came in accidentally b/c I thought it was the Rose Maddar :P. Anyhow, it sounds like a big palette (at least for me, I'm used to sticking with maybe 3-4 colors max), but the Cobalt was only for laying a thin ground and Ivory Black (we won't mind the "don't use black" rule of thumb this time,..personally I'd of preferred a deeper near-neutral purple but I don't have the paint to mix it) for deeper shadows. So that brings the primary batch down to 5. There were also some interesting things I learned about the paints here.
Rose Maddar is a STRONG color. "A little bit goes a long way" or so the saying has it. It threatened to overpower the other colors quite easily and often, but thankfully the very nature of watercolors kept it from being too big an issue for so long. I also like its intensity. Other Rose Maddars may be different, but I'd consider the one I use the "romantic's red", or a ruby red in tone. I probably lucked out getting this red b/c it and Ultramarine Deep make a nice saturated purple.
Cobalt has some unique uneven spread properties when used in heavily diluted washes. I'm sure I read of why this is the case somewhere before, but I can't recall the text from heart. Altho both it and Ultramarine are popular for skies, I probably prefer Cobalt for more pure, "early afternoon" skies, like where the sun is more prominent, and Ultramarine as a base elsewhere.
Burnt Sienne...the one I have is a bit more reddish in undertone than I thought it'd be, and that was a reason why I pushed for the picture to have a reddish tonal range (like I said, Rose is powerful even in little bits). It works very well in a more muted fashion w/ Shadow Green in creating neutral browns tho (sadly that's not present in this picture).
Ultramarine Deep, is a stronger blue than Cobalt. Deeper too. I'm interested in seeing more of what it can do. Burnt Sienne seems to knock it back in strength and neutralize it more..since I'm interested in more neutral-focused pieces, I'll definitely explore that in some future efforts.
Indian Yellow is a very nice 'cool' yellow (I consider it cool anyway, compared to a Cadmium). The oranges it can create w/ Maddar aren't so bright, but they worked for this picture. I wonder if I can create a more workable neutral orange by small mixes of Burnt Sienne or Shadow Green into the equation...we shall see.
I'd talk about the other three colors more, but I didn't use them extensively in this one, so maybe when I do a painting w/ them as dominant fixtures, we'll talk about 'em then.
Hopefully you enjoyed the picture and the write-up; this was fun as a testing exercise and I'm already looking into getting more Strathmore watercolor paper (it's what I used for this piece) to continue w/ more, and save the Arches panels for serious work. If there's time in the week, I'd love to try another painting to get even more comfortable with the medium. But until then, just be awesome and do you. I'll do the same. L8r.
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