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.