Thursday 10 January 2013

Walls and bridges in watercolour


My Monthly watercolour group are all such wonderful inspiring artists, never negative and always up for a challenge.It is such a joy to share a fun morning with them painting.At the last session I asked what they would like to paint ' Walls and and Bridges' 
I felt this lovely scene of Watendlath in the Lake District would be ideal. 
I had a practise run the day before, sketched a couple of thumbnails, decided on a square format, left the building out,chopped a few trees down and replanted one, it's exhausting work before you even lift the paint brush.



 Firstly a weak base colour was painted over the entire paper, cool colour and pale tones were used to paint the background. Stronger tones and warmer shades were used for the bridge and the Trees behind the bridge. I left the stream fairly untouched but did paint the reflections at the same time as the grassy bank and bridge I find this ideal using the same strengths of colour.




Stage two
I find foreground work needs a little thinking about.
Not too much detail but just enough without overworking.
In Stage two I washed out areas to reveal more of the path.
Decided to paint movement in the stream and a few larger rocks with stronger tones.
The grasses in the front still need extra tones and a touch more detail
These Winter days do give more more time on reflection, I don't like paint in artificial light
Tomorrow I hope to finish Watendlath!

I think this will make a great online project 
 plenty of colour mixing ideas, watercolour techniques including masking out and wax
 and how to paint Trees and moving water
If you would like to join my watercolour course and start watercolour painting




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