‘Celtic Dancer‘

This is a 9 x 12 watercolor on Ampersand aquabord (Claybord textured) museum series  panel.  It is finished with a spray varnish and framed like an oil painting.

The model was a pretty young girl at a local Celtic festival, complete with the ringlet curls all the dancers wore.

I recently saw watercolors on panel at the Easton Waterfowl Festival and wanted to give them a try.

Painting on the panel is unlike painting on paper or canvas and would take some getting used to.  I think I’ll stick to watercolor on paper and oil on canvas.

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My First Attempt

These flowers were painted on 140 lb. watercolor paper stretched over an 8 x 10 canvas.  (An artist friend, Ona Kingdon, put how to do this step by step on her blog.  To see it, go to www.emotiveexpressions.blogspot.com and scroll down to the October 8th entry.)  Painting on the stretched paper was a joy and painting the sides was not as hard as I thought it would be.

Finishing

You can see the nice effects of the salt I put in the background wash while wet.  When I use salt, I spray the finished painting with a special spray to neutralize the pH.  Next, I sprayed it with a fixative for watercolors.  Now I’m going to varnish it and frame it like an oil.  (Used: Archival Mist, Aquarell-Fixativ)

Problems

Stretching my paper over an 8 x 10 canvas was easier than varnishing the stretcher bars and cutting a backboard, but the bulk of the paper and the canvas made it too thick to fit in a standard frame.  So much for shortcuts.

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Long Hair and Innocence – 24 x 18″ watercolor on watercolor canvas

This is my first try at painting on watercolor canvas, but I think I like it.  I took the photo I did this from at a national park near Philadelphia.  This young girl swung around and I was impressed at her beautiful long braid, shining in the sunlight.  I just suggested the barn in the background and saved my detail work for her.

I wanted to do this watercolor painting as a video demonstration, but it didn’t work out, so I’m putting it in as a step-by-step lesson.  Let me know if you think it’s understandable.

This is my drawing.  The grey is Pebeo masking fluid and I applied it on the beach with a toothbrush, trying for a random pattern.   (I got the shadow of my head in the middle, but the rest of the photos I did right…..)

Okay, it seems like I did a lot, but it’s really just a first watercolor wash.  Using a big brush, I did a wash of cobalt blue and  burnt sienna to the sky and the water.

I used cobalt, sienna, quinacridone red and aureolin yellow on the beach, and spattered it with water while it was wet, to make the blotches.  When it was completely dry, I spattered the beach again with  a toothbrush and misket.

I painted the rocks and the beach again, using the same colors, but I added some ultramarine blue to go a little darker, and switched from aureolin yellow to quinacridone gold to jazz it up, spattering the golds into the purpley mix I had going.  I added salt while the watercolor was still wet for more texture.  Now I’ll take off the masking…

Now I start adjusting values.  I put in some dark values in the hair and blue jeans, and a dark shadow on the lower left.  I softened up some the white edges and smudged up some of the far-away rocks.  I start painting the seaweed, or whatever it is, with the quinacridone gold, burnt sienna and other colors.  I lifted out the hard line between the shore and the water.

I decided the rock on the right of the couple was too distracting, so I lifted most of that up, kept softening edges and painting seaweed.

I keep painting the detail.  I am using a smaller brush now.  I think the sky is boring, so I add a wimpy looking storm on the left and put some soft streaks in the water.  I put slightly darker streaks in the water and lift out a few lighter streaks.

Here is the finished painting.  I put some greys in the wave and shadows under the wave.  I added a faraway land on the right and felt that improved the painting’s composition.  I added some crashing waves to the rocks in the left of the ocean, so your eye has a lot to look at.

This is a detail from a watercolor painting I’m currently working on.  The white ice box has had four coats of paint so far, and I’m not done yet.

I usually paint dark areas in one intense watercolor wash, but I carefully inch up on the white areas.  I make puddles of aureolin yellow, quinacridone red and cobalt blue with just the barest hint of color in the water.

I put each color on my paper separately, but let the colors touch one another.  Then I tilt the paper so the colors flow together on the paper and blend a bit.  Hints of warm and cool in your whites will make them come alive  … or turn them into a dingy ice machine on a cold winter day.

What watercolors do you use?

I use a limited palette (three to five colors per watercolor painting) of mostly transparent colors.

Blues:  cobalt blue, Thalo blue (often called by other names, such as Windsor blue or Joe’s blue), Ultramarine blue and opaque cerulean blue

Yellows:  Aureolin yellow, New Gamboge yellow, raw sienna and Quinacridone gold

Reds:  Quinacridone red, Alizarin crimson and Napthol red

Others:  Burnt sienna, raw umber violet (a Daniel Smith color), Perylene green, and opaque olive green gouache

My watercolor palette is rarely “cleaned up,” and I try to never let my watercolor paints dry out.  For black, I mix raw umber violet with thalo or ultramarine blue. For most greens, I use perylene green or mix my own.