Today’s watercolor experiment:

Based on my warmup exercise, I decided to use Prussian blue, carmine red and lemon yellow for my variegated wash today. Below is today’s experiment after the first wash:

First Wash for Landscape

I love the way the upper portion turned out, where the Prussian blue (a greenish blue) merges with the lemon yellow. Even the lower portion of carmine red makes a pleasing misty combination after merging with the blue.

I intended to make this a landscape, so I used my ‘gray’ mixture (cobalt blue and cadmium red light) to draw a horizon and a silhouette of a cliff.  I did have some difficulty painting the reflections on the red water. The water is indeed red in this universe, as it doesn’t get its color reflected from anywhere else.  I did add lemon yellow to the red under the yellow portion of the sky, but it is hard to tell. I wet and rewet the paper several times, trying to lift color with a paper towel and re-apply the gray in several places.  In fact my provisional title for this piece was ‘Rough and Smooth’, to point out the difference between the upper and lower parts of the paper.

Landscape
9″x12″ 140# Cold Pressed Watercolor Block

With practice, the correct combination of colors for variegated washes and some ideas for interesting horizons, I am looking forward to painting more interesting landscapes.