The Dreamwidth Studios Art Community

cross-posted from journal.

It’s been quite a while since I had a class — missed the August session for C&N’s wedding — so it’s been over a month since I’ve seen our teacher. I had some questions on the waterfall I’ve been working on, but I put that aside as we had a new project to start out the new session.

We are working on a copy of a winter snowy scene by Zoltan Zsabo, who was a really really great watercolourist; we’ve done a few other things by him (Sunset Through Trees).

This was rather fun, I love doing big huge sky washes, mixing very wet colours (Permanent Alizerin Crimson at first, then going back with French Ultramarine) right on the paper. There was a flaw in the paper, though, as some part of it wouldn’t take paint — I guess it’s a cloud now! I tilted and moved the block of paper so the paint would just flow around — I love doing that!

The background forest was also fun. While the paper was still damp, started using a 1/2 inch flat with Quin Burnt Orange to make some orangish trees, then went over that with a mix of French Ultramarine, a tad of QBO to darken it, and some Sap Green. I ended up also doing just straight French Ultra to give it a little kick.

Then I started in with the blue shadows in the snow. This was fun; I kept the lower edge hard, to make a deliniation for the snow drift that is in front of the shadow area (negative painting to define shape). Also, a very pale, uneven wash over the snow area of Permanent Alizeran Crimson to give the snow a very slight pink cast as it is reflecting off the sky.

For the shadow parts, I gave the area in question a coat of clear water, then dropped in wet French ultra along the hard edge and let it flow into the softer areas. In some of the cases, I also dropped in some very tinted, wet Permanent Alizerin Crimson to give it a blue to purple cast.

That is what I got done today. I’ve really quite happy with it so far.

Mirrored from Tamara Temple's Blog.