Thursday, April 16, 2015

Blue Mood 1

While the day started off a little on the cool side at 28F (-2.2C) with frost on the ground, but with the sun out it warmed up quickly to 62F (16.7C).

I am pleased that my little Kestrels are once again moving into the nesting box outside my bedroom window.

Today I wanted to work with a very limited palette of two with perhaps a third colour added as an accent.

Using French ultramarine blue, I put a pale wash of colour over the entire paper.

While the paper was drying, I made various shades of grey blues and dark combinations of the two colours.

Starting with the lightest blue grey mix I put in the under paint for the trees in the background.













Using the next darker colour, I painted in the negative and left the areas of light colour throughout the background.

I continued adding layers of gradually darker colour and leaving lighter areas until I came to the darkest colour.

I applied the darkest blue grey mix onto the area of rocks in the foreground and using a palette knife, scraped out my rock shapes on the island in the foreground.

Using the dark colour mixes I added a little shading to the rocks.

With a mid range blue grey, I put a few ripples into the water.

Lastly, using cadmium yellow and aureolin I added in a few autumn leaves onto the deciduous trees in the background.

This little original 3" x 4-1/2" watercolour painting when framed will be available for $75.00. SOLD