WATERCOLOR: Cozy Cottage
Week 1
The first thing a good
watercolorist needs to have on their paper is a good drawing. We went over in
class several ways to get a drawing on your paper, it is best not to try and do
an original drawing directly on the paper because you can damage the surface of
the watercolor paper and it will cause you problems when you begin to paint, just
be sure to have your drawing on your paper before you start.
Once you have your drawing on your paper you then need to determine where your whitest whites will
be in your picture will be then you want to protect them with masking fluid. When
I look at the reference photo, I see the whitest whites on the top of the roof
and in the foreground on the top of the post in front and some of the bushes
along the side of the road but just mostly dibs and dabs of masking so that we
have texture in the snow.
Once you have these
areas masked and they are dry- the masking will feel tacky to the touch - you
will want to wet your entire paper, however, it is important to have the top of
your paper at a slight incline this allows gravity to help your paints move and
blend, you don't want your colors just sitting in little puddles all over your
paper you want it to move so it will blend.
I wet my entire sheet of
paper, I have protected what I need to have protected by using that masking
fluid so I'm not worried about anything else right now, I'm going to start inthe sky with a light gray that is ultramarine blue, tiny touch of burnt sienna
and even a little touch of purple and a lot of water you just want it to be
more of a tint then a strong color so add lots of water, you can add more color
later if you need to.
Going across the top of
the paper I took this light blue grey color and I did kind of diagonal stroke with
my angle brush to create the impressions of windblown clouds. I didn't take
them all the way down to the horizon, which is about the top quarter of the
paper so I did about half of that area, then, while the paper was still wet, I
rinse my brush picked up a little bit of alizarin crimson and lots of water,
again this is just a tent and right along the horizon up to the clouds and
brushed in the alizarin crimson to create a pink sky. The reason I'm using the crimson
is because it is a bit on the cooler side and I want this to look like an early
morning or late afternoon winter sky. I also added some of these colors into
the water area in the pond. We will work with the reflections later but just
put some of this color into the pond for now.
While the paper is still
damp, I went back into my palette where I had made the gray color added just a
touch more blue, a lot more water and tinted the rest of the paper. Be sure
that your color is not too strong, we are basically just killing the white of
the paper, color comes later. I went over everything do not avoid things you
think are supposed to be white, we have protected those areas with the masking
fluid you need to have this color on your paper as it becomes shadows and
texture in your snow.
Right along the horizon
line at the very bottom behind the house, there is the suggestion of distant trees or hills. These trees are in the far distance so you do not see any
details or branches so it could be a distant hillside it's too far away and we
don't see any detail to know exactly what it is but it is important to put it
in because it shows depth in your painting. To get the color for this area, I
went back into that same blue grey color on my palette I was using and I added
a bit more purple and blue. I don't want it very dark so there is still a lot
of water in it but it should be just slightly darker than your sky. I went
across that area making an irregular shape and if your paper is still wet like
it should be it will diffuse a little as you paint, your paper should be damp
to the touch not dripping wet otherwise it will diffuse too much.
Learning how much water
to use whether it is on your paper or in your brush is probably the biggest
problem for most beginning watercolorists.
With few exceptions you
never want either your paper or your brush to be dripping with wet paint or
water. Usually, having either your paper or your brush damped is a good way to
work, there are always exceptions where you will need either dry paper or wet
paper or a dry brush or very wet brush but in general having a damp surface to
work on will help your colors blend and your paint to flow and having a damp
brush will let you have a smoother application of color.
Once your paper is just
slightly damp particularly in the sky area you will want to paint in the closer trees in the background. These are trees that you won't see much detail but
they suggest that this little cabin is just on the edge of a forest so they are
important. These trees are not dark they are just slightly darker than the way
distant trees we just put in so again in the color that you have for those
distant trees in your palette add just a little more blue and purple and make
it just about one value darker then what is already there, just be sure that
your paper is not real wet it should be cool to the touch which means it is still
drying but that it is not completely dry, you want the trees you will put in to
slightly blur. I used my liner brush to put these in but if you notice they are
not real specific or detailed they're just a bunch of crocked lines to suggest
a lot of trees in the background they are too far away to see detail. Now let
your paper dry completely before we go on to the next step.
Again I was using my liner brush to make the trees in the background and near the cottage, if you
don’t have a liner but do have a small round brush like number 4 or number 6
that has a good point on it that will work or you can use the point of an angle
brush as well, you will just have to play around with it before you go to your
painting so you know what you need to do. With the liner brush you want to roll
the brush in the paint to fill it up good and as you take it off your palette
you roll it between your fingers as you pull up to create a point, then holding
it at the end of the brush in a downward angle, starting base of a tree you
push down to create a fatter section and then as you pull up into the branches
you lift the brush off the paper until you are on the very tip to create very
fine lines. To start another branch, put your brush into the trunk or branch
then start to pull and branch off, it will give you a better, cleaner look to
your tree. Practice this before you get on your painting and also observe trees
particularly at this time of year because there are no leaves on them and you
can see how the branches come off the trunk how they are not straight or how
they have bumps and twists in them and this will give you more confidence when
you are painting your trees.
There are three closer
deciduous trees near the house one of those trees on the left hand side of the
painting is behind the holly tree that takes up the left side, so as you paint
it watch at your drawing and skip areas where the holly tree will be in front
of the tree. This is so you don't have to worry about lines in your snow on the
holly bush that may not lift off but don't worry if you forget or can’t figure
out how to do it, while the paint is still wet, you can lift them off with a damp
brush or paper towel, just don't rub too hard on your paper because you don't
want to damage it, again we will let this dry.
The last thing we did
was to mask out some more parts of our painting I'm masked out where I wanted
the snow on the pine trees behind cabin and also in the crooks of some of the
branches of the closer trees, this is where we stopped for the day because the
masking fluid would have to dry before we could continue.
Please try to have your
painting to this point if you can, if you are still having problems or
questions and do not wish to proceed until class that's fine I will help you to
get caught up so keep painting and I will see you in class.
