Winter Landscape Watercolor

"Where the Tree Tops Glisten" LWatry©2014

I have started my Christmas card early this year. I started creating a winter scene painting for our cards about 11 years ago. This year I am teaching a snow scene class and so I am using the opportunity to create our Christmas card at the same time.

I chose to do a painting from a photo that I took after a big snow storm in Colorado Springs. For my Christmas cards, I started adding an ornament or two to make it a little more festive, but still keep the look of a quiet snow scene.

"Where the Tree Tops Glisten" LWatry©2014

I started the painting by masking off the foreground branches, snow, and pine needles. I also masked off the little dots of white where the ice collected on the ends of the pine needles. I added 5 ornaments to the drawing to make it a Christmas scene. Then I started painting in the background snow and trees. I used some sponging and some direct painting with a brush. I did several layers and changes of value so that there would be depth in the back.

After the background snow and trees were to a place that was looking good, I started the foreground branch.The second image shows the progress with the snow shadowed and some of the needles and branches going in. I also painted in the 5 ornaments in red so that they would stand out against the cooler colors. I used a slightly warmer brown and gray brown on the branches so that they would look sunlit and closer than the cooler background trees. I still have some of the masking on the little sparkles of ice snow on the needles. I will continue with the foreground branch and post the final painting when it is complete.

Watercolor Skies

Pikes Peak Sunrise  LWatry©2014

I recently taught a class on painting skies in watercolor. The painting to the left of Pikes Peak is one of the finished demo paintings that I did for the class.

Before I began the painting, I masked the moon in the upper right and masked the edge of the mountain so that I could paint in my sky without having to worry about painting around those areas.

The sky in this painting was done wet-in-wet. I started by painting clear water onto the sky area and then I used peaches, pink and blues to paint in the colors of the sky. I let the colors bleed together so that they would have soft edges. The blue is ceruelian blue and the peaches were made from permanent rose and aureolin yellow.

Because this is a sunrise scene, the land needed to reflect some of the same colors that are in the sky. So, the white snow area received a wash of some of the peachy pinks that are in the sky. Then I used some purple to add the shadows. The lower part of Pikes Peak was painted with muted or grayed down colors and I let the color fade at the bottom to give it a misty effect.

There are many techniques and ways to portray skies. Experiment and have fun, don't over work them. Some of the best skies are done with minimal brushstrokes and the color and water is left to mingle and create exciting passages.

Watercolor Video of Longs Peak, Happy New Year!

On this day, the 31st of December - 2011, I want to wish everyone a very Happy New Year filled with family, friends, and art! I have spent part of the day painting a watercolor on canvas of Longs Peak. I plan on ringing in the New Year by painting again tomorrow. I hope this inspires me to re-focus on my art and be less distracted by other things. I have attached a small part of the video I am shooting for the Longs Peak painting. Happy Painting to All!

Watercolor Project - Aspen on Watercolor Canvas

Aspen on Watercolor Canvas Demo4 LWatry ©2011

 I have finished the aspen on watercolor canvas. The following is a description of the final steps and the finished image. You can see the start of this painting at my post on November 11 - Watercolor Projects on Yupo and Watercolor Canvas.

Aspen on Watercolor Canvas Demo5 LWatry ©2011

If you have not tried watercolor canvas, it can be a fun surface to work on with watercolor because it is very easy to lift color back off. I also work a little faster on canvas because you have to be a little more direct with your colors and values. You can layer, but the previous layers might lift off if you are too vigorous with your brush.

Aspen on Watercolor Canvas Demo7 LWatry ©2011

I decided to mask out my foreground, large leaves because I wanted them to have clean hard edges. I could have gone back and lifted any errant color back off the leaves, but they would have had softer edges then and they may not have been as free of color as I wanted them. I finished up the shadows on the tree trunks before removing the masking on the leaves. For the distinct markings on the aspen trunks, I used a mix of French Ultramarine, Burnt Sienna, and Quinacridone Magenta. These three colors can be mixed to give gray blues, browns, and purples. I used these same colors on the small branches of the trees. I left the white of the canvas as the white of the trees accept for a very subtle brushing of a yellowing green in a few places to give the whites a "touch" of color.

The Demo7 image shows the completed painting. I used three shades of yellow and some green and orange to paint in the leaves. Sometimes while a leaf was still wet I would float in a second color to give interest to the leaves. I also left some leaves very pale so that they had the look of sunlight hitting them. The finishing step was to paint some purple/blue shadows on some of the leaves to give the painting more depth.

Aspen on Watercolor Canvas Demo6 LWatry ©2011

In the Demo6 image you can see the side of the canvas. I decided to paint the edge a dark brown with acrylics. Right now this painting is hanging just as it is with a brown edge and no frame. Some patrons like this look. So, I will leave it this way for a while. My other options are to frame it like an oil painting with a linen liner and a frame with no glass or you can get a frame that is specifically made for floating a canvas without a matt. (Here is one link to American Frame so that you can see what a floater frame looks like.) http://www.americanframe.com/search.aspx?prodtype=Frame&keyword=floater+frames

Aspen on Watercolor Canvas Demo8 LWatry ©2011

In the Demo8 image you can see the edge that is now painted brown and the whole canvas was then sprayed with 3 or 4 coats of acrylic matt sealer. This will protect the watercolor from ruin if it should get wet.

Watercolor canvas works with masking and salt if you like those techniques and probably many other techniques. I have decided that instead of buying the pre-stretched watercolor canvases, I like to buy big rolls of the watercolor canvas from online stores and then stretch it to the dimensions that I want to work with. Also, I have found that the roll of canvas has a slightly different feel that allows for an easier time working with it, while some of the pre-stretched canvases almost resist the paint. Note: canvas is still not as widely accepted by the buying public because I think some are unsure if it is an original painting or a reproduction. Some shows you enter may not allow canvas, so read the prospectus carefully.

Watercolor Projects on Yupo and Watercolor Canvas

Do you have too many projects lying around? It becomes difficult to focus with a lot of unfinished projects. I just finished teaching a class series focusing on aspen trees and now I have 4 demo paintings in various stages of completion that I need to finish up. I also taught a snow scene class earlier in the year with the idea that one of these paintings would become my Christmas card painting for this year. However, I never completed the painting. So, now that it is almost time to send Christmas cards, I am feeling the pressure to get this painting finished and printed. So, while I am in the process of cleaning up my studio and completing projects, I thought I could use these paintings as a blog demo. The following is a description of where I am in the process of painting.

 This is my snow scene for my Christmas card. This painting is on Yupo (a plastic that is used for printing in some magazines). Working with Yupo for snow scenes is great because the paint sits on the surface and remains very vibrant and the whites are brilliant. I have a lot of this painting completed. I started by painting in the sky with a mix of cobalt blue and manganese and then I mixed a purple gray for the back ground trees. I wanted these trees to feel like they were in the distance and  thick with branches. I then painted the green pine needles, the trunks of the foreground trees, and the shadows on the snow. I used masking on the snow that is hanging on the branches. It is very easy to lift with Yupo, so I could have forgone the masking, but this will give me cleaner edges. I like making my Christmas card scenes quiet and peaceful. Sometimes I will add an ornament to a tree to spruce the scene up a little and give the idea that someone has been there, without actually showing a figure. This scene lent itself to a trail of ornaments that invite the viewer down the path in the snow.  My next step will be to soften some of the edges of the snow on the pines and put some shadows on them. Then I will finish up the trunks of the foreground aspen trees and I think it will be finished. I will post the finished painting, hopefully soon.

 This is one of the aspen paintings that I need to finish. This painting is on watercolor canvas. I stretched a piece of watercolor canvas around 12x20 inch stretcher bars to get the proportion I wanted of a long narrow painting. I then did my sketch directly onto the canvas and masked the foreground leaves to protect them while painting in the background and shadows on the tree trunks. I decided to use very strong sunlight in this scene and the white of the canvas is the white of the trees on the right side. The background sky and leaf foliage was painted in first. I painted the leaves in while the sky was still wet so that they would have a soft edge. Next I started putting in the shadows on the left of the trees and the branches. For the purposes of my in class demonstration, I skipped some steps and took some off the masking of the foreground leaves to demo how I would paint them (the shiny spot on this photo is some of the masking that still needs to be removed).

 In this close up, you can see the foreground leaves and a variation of color in some of them, to give more visual interest. I have also started to paint some of the darker markings that are found on aspen trees around the branches and on the trunk.

I will post more steps as I work to complete these two paintings and hopefully get some clutter out of my studio and off my mind!