Evening Light, Waterton Lakes, 20″ x 16″, pastelbord

Watercolor underpainting

Day 1 painting and repainted underpainting

Day 2 painting-water, tree, bushes

Last week I gave my regular three-day “Beat the Heat” workshop in Rockville. Rather than doing a demo in the first morning, as I always have, I decided to do the demo in three parts, finishing on the third day.  I chose an image from my trip that had everything–sky with clouds, mountains with late afternoon light, water and reflections, tree against sky, bushes, and a field of flowers! What a gold mine for teaching landscape painting!!!

I took all of the in-process shots with my cell phone and they are very small images–sorry, will have to learn to change them!

Waterton Lakes is just north of Glacier National Park and is in Alberta, CA. It is an amazingly beautiful place!  There are so many flowers (and bears!) and wonderful places to walk (with bears!).  We ran into a mother grizzly on the first morning (not so good), then a smallish black bear the next day who went for a swim in the lake (much better!)

This image was taken after dinner on the road that leads into the park. Quite beautiful!

Day 1: Underpainting, sky and mountains.  I used watercolor for the underpainting, which faded of course. I later added more violet to the dark bushes.  But it produced a gorgeous gold color under the lake. I painted the sky and clouds with Ludwigs and used Giraults for the mountain and distant grasses. In my photo the distant trees were very dark and I made them lighter.  Late in the day, I decided to add more watercolor to the un-painted portions of the surface and you can see the difference!  The dark violet really made the golden water glow!

Day 2: Water, tree, and bushes. I hated to cover up the water!  I very lightly applied a blue green Ludwig, letting some of the gold show through, then added some peachy color for the reflection. Then I worked on the tree, using greens and violets. In the photo, this whole area is very dark.  I purposely lightened it a little, as I know what late day photography does, and I wanted it to have more interest as well.  I began the bushes with very dark green and violet, then added slightly lighter greens on over, leaving the dark in the underneath parts.  It was enough to provide a good contrast with the water.

Day 3: Field of flowers.  I began by adding darker swaths of greens and some browns in the field, to build up the grasses. Added some blades of grass with the sides of Giraults. I began with the orange seed heads of the grasses in the back of the field and liked the way they looked over the dark green. Then I added the flowers: white daises, yellow flowers at right, and some purple ones I made up.  Finally, I added stalks of grass over the flowers to push them into the field.

Today, I took a final look at it and made a few more changes. I softened the shadows in the distant mountain (too blue) by adding some light red violet and I felt much happier with it.

Hazy Morning, Paradise Valley, 18″ x 24″, pastelbord

Watercolor underpainting

Photo ref 1

Photo ref. 2

This morning I finished a painting that I started prior to last week’s three-day workshop (next post!).  It’s from the Paradise Valley in Montana, just south of Livingston, where the Yellowstone River flows out of the park and forms a truly beautiful valley.  We had a great time stopping and taking photos and just looking on our way down to the park.

I’m including the photo references as I used two, taken close together. I liked the dark mountain in #2 and the bend of the river and foreground in #1.  You can also see how odd the trees are!  I tried to minimize this a bit.  When I got to the foreground, I decided I liked the bushes in the #1 shot, but took out the path with it’s dark line. I really liked just playing with the shadows and light.

I began with watercolor again, this time using yellow for the sky. I wanted the sense of the hazy light (probably smoke from fires!).  I began with an aqua over the yellow, then added a real yellow, and my very whited orange and yellow–all Ludwigs.  I used the brown for the mountain, thinking that warm under the cool violet would add some contrast and I was pleased with it.  I did all of the mountains and sky with Ludwigs.

In putting in the distant fields, I got out various boxes of Blue Earth pastels and played with the grayed colors. I REALLY had a good time with this!  I wanted the colors to be muted and I found that the grayed blues, greens, and oranges were really perfect.  Used them for most of the foreground as well, with Ludwigs for the the water.  Colorwise, I stuck to blues and didn’t go to true violets at all. But the there is blue violet in the mountain and in the river.

I loved doing this painting!  One of my favorite painters is Russell Chatham, who is known for his paintings of the Paradise Valley–frequently with winter snow. My picture is a bit “prettier” and maybe “happier” than his–an no where near as good!  But I had a good time doing it. AND–if you are ever in Livingston, MT, be sure to visit the hospital which doubles as the local art museum!  Russell Chatham paintings everywhere, along with original art by other local artists. A really wonderful find!!!

In Logan Canyon, 18″ x 24″, Pastelbord

Today was a rainy day and I was happy to be in the studio with two good friends. I finished my first painting from our recent trip to the West.  I have a number of 18 x 24 white Pastelbords and a number of 18 x 24 frames that I bought  years ago. So I’ve decided to do a series of paintings using the boards and the frames.  I decided to begin with the first day of our trip when we surprisingly found that we were driving up a gorgeous canyon with many stops and a lovely path along the river.  What a great way to begin our trip!

Water-soluble grapite drawing on the Pastelbord

I decided to try out my new water-soluble graphite sticks that I got at IAPS last month to draw in the composition.  This was not such a good idea!  It came out very dark (unlike when I’ve just added water over regular pencils). And then it mixed with the watercolor underpainting!  So I probably won’t do this again.

For the underpainting, I used watercolor as I like the way it leaves lots of the tooth in the board.  I did it fairly loosely and it became quite dark, with the addition of the graphite! But it worked.

I began with the sky, using Terry Ludwig blue greens, then a light orange over the top.  These have become my favorite sky colors for sure. I like the way they go on loosely and the ability to layer.

Compositionally, I added the faint distant mountain, which was not in the picture.  The printed out 8 x 10  was more narrow and the 18 x 24 format needed something more of interest.

When I took the picture, it was the distant tree, the tree above it, and the light and shadow on the path that really made me love it. So I decided that the path had to be the main thing. The idea of walking up the path should be inviting.  At one point, I had more water to the left, and in a very bright yellow.  I decided it was a competing force with the path and changed it. Used the dark colors from above and added some light to indicate moving water, but left it as a minor element in the painting.

When we were there, I remembered the beautiful light on the bushes, so I wanted to highlight that, along with the small flowers, and other details in the foreground. On the right, there was a tree in light with a darker tree in front of it.  I worked on that and then added slightly lighter color as the bottom to indicate small grasses and plants. I also added some orange on in the flowers to left of path and some dark orange brown on the right.  Adding warm to cool, or vice versa, always gives more depth and interest to an area of color.

For the path, I began with a violet and a pinky-orange for the light. Then I added some of my very light blue violet Blue Earth pastels into it to give it more variety.  I have to say that the Blue Earths are wonderful on Pastelbord. Because this is a very hard surface, and they are soft, they go on lightly (particularly if you can use a light touch!).  So much of the finished painting is from the green and blue violet Blue Earths.

It was lovely to be in my studio reliving my trip and sharing the experience with good friends!

Watercolor underpainting