Hello and a work in progress

[tamouse]

Hi, I just joined here (art that is). I've been taking watercolour painting classes for the past few years. I would like to connect to other watercolourists and other artists to get some more feedback on my work. My teacher is really great and I love her, and I have another friend who is a pro watercolourist who gives me help. I'm just looking for more of a sense of community as well.

So, my current work in progress is a waterfall. This is my first go at flowing water and I'm really struggling.





Update: Corrected link:
For more on this work, see http://wiki.tamaratemple.com/Art/WCWaterfall1

Comments

[jjhunter]

Hello again, tamouse! Alas,

The page "Art/WcWaterfall1" doesn't exist.

Water in general is hard, and moving/falling/rippling/etc. water is especially difficult.

My well-thumbed copy of Gordon Mackenzie' 'The Watercolorist's Essential Notebook' (amusingly, when I googled this to give you a reference link, youtube obligingly provided "The Watercolorist Essential Notebook Landscapes with Gordon Mackenzie") suggests a few things for water effects - varying line widths with zigzags, preparing the paper beforehand by partially wetting it with a "hog hair brush & add[ing] paint with a loaded flat synthetic brush" (or with a sponge), using liquid latex to preserve the brightness of highlights, etc.

It looks like in the current waterfall, your colors are starting to blur together, and you're losing the brightness you'll need for 'light sparkling off spray' highlights. On the other hand, the line of little shadows marking the crest of the fall is nicely done, and I like the hints of more intense medium to dark blue.

Composition-wise, what's interesting here is the waterfall - if you were starting from scratch, I'd zooming in the waterfall itself itself & losing some of that upper area with the tree trunks. Roots & rocks & falling water - that's the neat stuff, and it looks like you're already very comfortable with tree trunks and underbrush - i.e. there's less to learn by focusing there.

With the current piece, I think your actual waterfall is pretty close to being done - if you can figure out how to enliven the water post-waterfall, the piece should snap together more. (I really like what you've done with the two partially-under-water rocks in the middle bottom left, by the way - subtly done, and lovely.)

Hope that helps!

[tamouse]

Thanks, jj :)

The link was close, but off by one lowercase letter :(

The correct link is:

http://wiki.tamaratemple.com/Art/WCWaterfall1

Thanks for the pointers to Gordon MacKenzie. I will check them out soon!

[lark_ascends]

Don't know anywhere near enough to give you pointers, but I think that's coming along well! Lovely.