Winter 2020 Watercolor class

Project: Desert Refuge Wednesday Final Day

This was my final day working on the project in the beginning Wednesday class, and this is what we will be doing in the Monday class when we meet next week: Adding final touches.

The hardest part of any painting is knowing when to stop. You brain keeps thinking that thee must be something to add or to fix but more often than not, if you are looking for something to do or fix, you are probably done. At least set it aside for a few days (or weeks) then look at it with fresh eyes, if nothing jumps out at you, you are done.

With this painting I knew to finish it the way I like a painting to be done, I needed to add a few "decorations'" like rocks and weeds so the levee bank doesn't look so bare but that was about it.

I did a larger demo to show what I was going to be doing to my painting because it was so small, it would be hard to see.

To suggest rocks, I first lifted out some shapes in the levee bank. Be sure that when you lift out the shapes that you make various sizes and different shapes or you will end up with a herd of turtles.

Next I took some brown color I had on my palette - probably sienna and a little blue - and suggested the sides of the rocks. Don't over think this, the rocks are too small in the painting for much if any detail other than a darker color. In some cases if you already have some lighter spots in your bank color, just used the darker brown to make them into rocks.

Next, I added some weeds that grow along the bank and by the water. Many times weeds will be around the rocks and they will also grow in the direction of the slope of the bank so don't make the bottoms flat all the time. I also went back in with the liner brush to make some individual blades of grass, this is the same process as we did with the taller reeds.

Last thing I did on the bank was to add some shadows from the trees. If you look at the photo, you will see some shadows that cross the path and go down the slope from the trees on the other side of the path. I didn't want the black shadows that the camera makes, I just wanted a suggestion of shadow so I mixed my ultramarine blue and a little crimson to make a lavender color and water to thin it.

When painting shadows remember that they need to follow the contours of what they are falling on, for instance, if they fall on a flat surface you can use flat strokes, but when they change direction like these do going down the side of the levee, they also need to change to the angle of the levee bank. I also added shadows to the rocks and weeds.

The other thing I did was to negative paint behind the reeds under the trees with that same purple color and create some tops to the reeds on the other side of the path. You don't need to do this, I just thought that I needed to define the tops of those reeds a bit more. If you  look at the photo, you will see some darker colors in the area at the bottom of the mountain, that was the look I was going for.

Just those few little things were all I did to finish up my painting, you will need to look at your own painting and decide for yourself if you are done. If you like what you have, leave it alone, this is your painting finish it the way you want. I am just showing you how I finished mine.

Because we did finish early, I did a demo on some of the things we can cover next class, and I will be taking requests if there is something specific that you need help with and that I can demo in class, Monday class, we may have time during the second part of our next class to do this and/or finish after we do our critiques on or last class.

Have plenty of paper or bring some blank watercolor cards, we will need them.

Until next class, keep painting.