Watercolor Demo Part One

This blog is a continuation of my watercolor demo from the last two classes of the Spring II Session at the Y.

I started with a watercolor wash over crinkled tissue paper, to take advantage of the natural veining which occurs as the watercolor seeps through and then pools around the crinkles. This technique adds abstract areas of interest and texture within a landscape.

After the paper was dry, I lightly sketched in the main subjects; a few bare trees and some large areas to represent groups of trees with foliage. No details.

I added thin washes of colors (greens and blues slightly altered by adding a bit of red to neutralize the colors.) over the main shapes, which are the contours created by the large areas of trees. The washes were thin so that the crinkle pattern would still show through.

The tree trunks were painted with a combination of green, blue and red to create a dark neutral. Dark blue mixed into the neutral to create shadows. The shadows were painted onto the trees when the paper was wet so that the darker tones would diffuse randomly into the lighter neutral.