It took me a little while to get back to doing my watercolor studies, after visiting the kids last week. I just got the studio back in order, unpacked, put everything away and…  no ideas.

Today’s watercolor experiment:

I was flipping through a watercolor magazine and saw a poor reproduction of a painting by J.M.W. Turner.  It inspired me to try to something atmospheric.

Now I know this is a bit silly, but I didn’t use up all the pigment I squeezed out on my palette yesterday, so “waste not, want not,” I thought, and decided to be atmospheric in the same (nearly fresh) color scheme.

However, I did use the cadmium red light and the cerulean blue slightly differently. Without testing, one can never quite know how red and blue will mix. It so happened that the shades on the palette played very well together. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Process:

I pre-wet the entire paper and put a very light application of cadmium red halfway down the page. I mixed the red and blue and made a triangular shape in the middle of the paper. I removed some of the pigment with a paper towel, in an attempt to make room for the mystery of clouds.

In the foreground, I used a blue mixture on the right side of the frame, blending it with lemon yellow; on the left side I applied English yellow, with a touch of the cadmium red. A little more than one third of the way from the bottom, extending from the top of the red, I placed the horizon, initially with a dark blue/red, later reinforced with black. In the left foreground, I placed some dark marks, to balance the picture.

Back to the sky. I streaked in a bit of the English yellow and some of the red and blue.  I dripped some clear water in the place that I left for the clouds. I was expecting a more cloud-ish look to them.

Mysterious Island
9″x12″ Cold Pressed Watercolor Block

Comment:

I like the colors and the way they interact, and the atmospherey look. It doesn’t matter (much) that there are reflections where there are no objects reflecting the incident light.