Today’s watercolor experiment:

My last foray into reflections for a while. Time to put this chapter of the Tate Watercolor Manual * to rest. Below is my moon-snow-waterscape.

I followed the same procedure as in my warmup exercise (Warmup – Moon Reflections) by encircling an area of the paper with neutral tint wash. The aura around this space comes from the heavier concentration of pigment. Beneath the circle representing the moon is an expanse of snow. One can tell it is snow by the bluish gray tint (Payne’s gray).

Beneath the snow is a body of water. I left a rectangular blank space directly underneath the moon as the basis for its reflection. I dragged some of the neutral tint into the white space in order to give a sense of the water in the bright area.

Moon Over Snow and Water
9×12 140# Cold Pressed Watercolor Block

The ripples seen in the white space are not repeated in the dark space representing the rest of the water. That is one problem with this composition. Another is the moonlight reflection on the shoreline. I painted the shoreline with a cobalt blue/yellow ochre combination. Beneath the moon, however, I was unable to lighten its value. I even tried scraping off some of the pigment with a knife.

Enough of reflections per se, for now. Undoubtedly I will have further occasion to include them in my paintings.

I am excited about tomorrow’s lesson, which is about ‘natural skies’.

* Tate Watercolour Manual, Lessons from the Great Masters by Tony Smibert and Joyce Townsend