I began today’s tree painting as I have for the past several days: introducing earth tone pigments to the wet half of a 12″x9″ piece of watercolor paper. As usual, the pigment bloomed into tree-like forms.  I wanted to make a forest so I let the first color application dry, re-wet it and added another layer with different earth tones.  I repeated this several times.  I scrubbed some of the pigments away to create lighter areas. However, the overall effect of the layers was to darken the overall tone of the composition. For the final touch to the forest, I used a fan brush to add the skeletons of the trees.

This left the bottom half of the paper blank. I used a light and dark blue for the foreground, leaving space for reflections. (I need to practice reflections.)

Finally, I added a line of yellow gouache weeds at the junction of the trees and the river.

Night Trees with Weeds
12″x9″ 140# Cold Pressed Watercolor Block