Watercolor Painting of a Cyclist in Motion, Finish!

Shifting Gears ©LWatry 2016

I have finished my bicycle painting, Shifting Gears.

I still had parts of the bike to paint and some values to adjust at the end of the last post.

I again mixed, Pthalo blue and Permanent Alizeran Crimson to make a black for the bike. I painted the black in around the lettering without masking it because I knew I would eventually soften and blur the lettering edges to add to the feeling of motion.

I darkened the values on his left leg, the water bottle, and a few places on the bike. I decided to paint a little more orange along the stripe in the background to help pull the viewers eye toward the left. I softened a few edges here and there and cleaned up a few edges by painting around them.

I am happy with the painting over all. If I do another painting with bikes in motion, I might change the background process and instead of painting it in wet-on-wet, I might try letting the paint drip. I might also take the time to mask some of the lettering and parts of the bicycle to make the painting of the bike posts easier and quicker.

Thanks for following along.

Watercolor Painting of a Cyclist in Motion, Part 4

Shifting Gears ©LWatry2016

This is part 4 of my cyclist in motion painting. I added more value to the skin tones and I also increased the shadow on his jersey.

The helmet now has some shadows and I added some of the colored markings on the helmet and the jersey. I started painting in the wording on the jersey. I tried to keep it simple and slightly blurry so that it wouldn't be too distracting and would add to the feeling of movement.

Shifting Gears ©LWatry 2016

Next, I started painting in some of the blacks. I don't use a tube black. I generally mix Pthalo Blue and Permanent Alizeran Crimson to make a black. I use more pigment and less water in this mix and some times I let the mix be cooler (more Pthalo) or warmer (more Alizeran). Tube blacks tend to not have as much life as a mixed black.

I painted around the lettering on the shorts and then went back and blurred some of the lettering by softening edges and lifting some of the color back off, leaving a ghost of the black still there.

I also added a little orange on the yellowish stripe in the background to help add some warm to the cool background. The warm color in the background mirrors his warm skin tone and helps move the viewers eye around the painting.

Watercolor Painting of a Cyclist in Motion, Part 3

Shifting Gears ©LWatry 2016

I have begun to add more value on the shadows of the figure and now the arms and legs are starting to look muscled. I painted in the hair with mixes of ultramarine blue, burnt sienna, and some quinacridone magenta that creates a dark blue/brown.

I painted in the shiny gold/orange sunglasses. I have started adding the colorful stripes and markings on the bike with new gamboge yellow and sap green. I am looking for areas that I can paint in to help describe the shapes before I paint the black on his shorts and the bike.

I will continue to make adjustments to the values as I add shapes. I can already tell that I may have to darken the shadow on the side and back of his jersey. 

Watercolor Painting of a Cyclist in Motion, continued...

Shifting Gears ©LWatry 2016

I am continuing to work on my new bicycle painting. I decided to title the painting, 'Shifting Gears'. I have added more layers to the cyclist's skin to increase the value and start to introduce the lights and shadows I am using the same color mixes I talked about in the first post of this painting, but I have started to increase the amount of pigment in the mix to increase the values.  When working with a figure in a painting, I usually start by painting the face. That way if the face is not looking right, I can start again if I need to without having invested a lot of time into the piece.

I will continue working on the figure a little longer and then start the clothes and bike. I am still thinking of adding a warmer stripe of color in the background, but will wait until I get more of the cyclist done before deciding.

As far as watercolor paint, most of the paint I now use is from Daniel Smith. I would highly recommend these paints because the pigment is very saturated and they reconstitute and become juicy even after drying in the wells on my palette.

Watercolor Painting of a Cyclist in Motion

Cyclist ©LWatry 2016

I started working on this cyclist last week. I have had this photo for several years now and every now and then I think about painting it. Then I heard of a show that will feature bicycle art and decided now would be a good time to try it. The background is blurry because when I was taking the picture I panned with the cyclist as he was going by, thus blurring the background. 

I started the painting by masking off the cyclist and bike using masking tape and liquid mask to protect them while I painted the background. Then I wet all of the background and started painting on the colors that were blurred. I may still go back into the background to adjust values or add some brighter color. But, I will wait to make adjustments until I have more of the cyclist painted in.

Today, after removing the mask from the figure, I cleaned up the edges and then started by painting a base coat on his skin using a very thin mix of cadmium red with a little aureolin yellow mixed in. After this dried I started layering thin glazes of color onto the face and limbs. I used mixes of Permanent Alizeran Crimson & burnt sienna, Perm. Alizeran & Ultramarine Blue, as well as the Cadmium red & Aureolin Yellow mix from earlier. I will continue adjusting and adding to these layers to create the shadows and highlights.

His shirt was painted with a variegated wash of cobalt, manganese, quinacridone rose, and aureolin yellow. I used the yellow to make the front of the shirt glow. Normally I would paint the shadows in last, but because there are some defined graphic shapes and lettering that I don't want to possibly blur, I started with the shadow.

I will try to post the stages of the painting as I work on it.

Watercolor Painting of Baritones Part 3

I started a painting of my son playing the marching baritone with his high school band in May of this year, 2014. I finished the painting in July of this year. I realized, while looking through some of my blog posts, that I never showed the final steps of the painting. Part One and Part Two are available if you click on the following links: Watercolor Painting of Baritones Part 1 and Watercolor Painting of Baritones Part 2. 

Baritone Painting LWatry© 2014

In the first two images you can see that I have started working on the instruments to give them a shiny, metallic feeling. The way to do this is to paint the things that are reflected in the surface. So, I look for all the changes of color and value and I also include the places that look shiny white to help with the illusion. Since this is a marching band, they were warming up outside and so there is sky and trees and other things reflected in the metal surfaces.

I continued to work on each of the instruments. There were a lot of abstract pieces in them as well as distorted reflections. The painting is mostly a cool value painting with lots of blues and greens, so I wanted to highlight the oranges and skin tones that I found reflected in the horns and on the figures skin. I tried a variety of grays and ended up mixing small containers of my favorites. I found a new mix that I really liked - Italian burnt sienna and French ultramarine blue make a great gray.  

Even though I was working on the horns a lot at this stage, I kept going back to the skin tones in my sons face and those visible on the other musician's arm and neck. Because I now had a lot more values from dark to light in the painting, I could more accurately judge the skin tones to see if they needed adjustments.

"Fanfare" watercolor by LWatry©2014

Here is the final painting. I love the way the layering of the horns and gloved hands looks. I wanted the foreground horns to be less in focus, so I softened the edges with a damp brush after I finished them. I decided to title the painting "Fanfare" and I think it makes a great memory of my sons time in the Liberty High School marching band!

Watercolor Painting of Baritones Part 2

Fanfare LWatry ©2014

Fanfare LWatry ©2014

I haven't had a whole lot of time to work on my baritone watercolor, which I have decided to title "Fanfare". However, I did get a chance to add hair to my sons head and I started the metal of the marching baritone that he is playing.

I also started adding some of the blue to the horns where the sky is reflecting on the tops and bells of some of the horns.

In the close up you may be able to see the variety of grays and color that are in the metal including some great orange reflections that are from the marchers orange-ish shirts. The painting is mostly a cool color scheme and so the warmer oranges in the skin and reflections will be a nice contrast.

Now that I have some of the surrounding values in, the face looks a little pale. I will probably add a few more thin glazes of color to his face before the painting is completed. It is always amazing to see how the early values change as other values are placed next to them.

I will keep posting updates as the painting progresses, so please check back.

Watercolor Painting of Baritones

Baritone Painting LWatry©

 I started my new band painting yesterday. This one is of my son and the baritone section for marching band. Because he is so tall I got a shot of him above the other baritones and thought it would be a wonderful painting. I really liked the blurry green trees in the background and the reflections of sky and orange from their shirts in the instruments. I plan on playing up these colors, so they will really grab attention.

Baritone painting LWatry©

I started the painting by masking around the edges of the instruments and my sons face in preparation to paint the background. Then I remembered that I wanted to start with his face and had to remove a little masking. The reason I started with his face was to see if I could getting it looking the way I wanted before moving on. If the face wasn't turning out right, then I could start the painting again and I wouldn't have invested a lot of time into it, yet. I worked his face in layers. The first washes were done with a warm red and yellow to give the skin a warm glow. Then I started layering on washes of permanent rose and a yellow or alizeran and burnt sienna. These are cooler reds and I could start modeling the skin. I also used some ultramarine blue and alizeran for shadows. I always layer skin in thin washes until I have it where I want it. But, don't hesitate to go dark with shadows. I may still had some to his face once I have more paint on the rest of the scene to judge my values by.

Baritone painting LWatry©

The next step was to paint some masking back around the edge of his face so that I could do a wet-n-wet wash on the background trees. I wanted them to be blurry color. After the masking was dry I painted water several times over the whole background green large area. Before I did this, I had what ever colors I thought I might use out on my palette ready to go. I tried to vary the colors in the trees without getting too crazy and I left some areas that look like the sky was peeking through. I let this dry over night and realized that part of the background needed a little darker value. So, I turned my painting upside down and very gently washed water over the part of the background that I wanted to adjust and added some deeper color.

Baritone painting LWatry©