"Welcoming Pine" - Watercolor demonstration

I finished painting the pine boughs, and placing the final details of branches and grass using a small brush, with dark colors mixed from same hues used in the rest of the painting.

Working on the positive and negative shapes, I added trees

to the background, foreground grass and indicated tree shapes

to the left of the trunk. The main tree trunk was painted with burnt sienna with ultramine blue dropped in to create a glow to the tree.

I continued painting the middle values of the tree tops, by

wetting the area and dropping alizarin crimson, ultramarine blue, b. sienna, yellow ocher and cadmium yellow, allowing them to mix on the paper.

Working on Arches 140# watercolor paper, I wet the sky area and used cerulean blue and ultramarine blue, avoiding areas I wanted to be white. I wet the background tree line with water and used violets, blues and greens to make soft and hard edges. Burnt sienna and yellow ocher was used to paint the space around the trunk keeping my center of interest crisp and white.

First in the "8 Little Flowers" series.

 This is the start of a series called "8 Little Flowers".

I'm going with the "start small" idea for learning how to use
acrylics and am posting start to finish images to
show the progress of this painting.

False Sunflower

Acrylic on wrapped canvas

5 x 7
Sold

3. I continued to glaze colors until I got the depth of color I wanted, making sure the shadow values were correct. Adding the center detail by dotting in the various values and shapes I then added the last detail darks to finish.

2. I decided to use a blue compliment for the background rather than a green, combining cobalt and ultramarine blues. I started glazing more cad yellow and added a cool yellow to sunlit areas as well as a bit of white added in here and there. Alizirine crimson was glazed on the center and combined with the other colors to suggest the crevice darks.

 

1. I started on a gallery wrap canvas with ocher and cad yellow.
Looks like I need to fix the center shape.

Cosmos

Acrylic

4x6"
Sold

I decided to try doing a smaller acrylic painting this time.

This cheery little cosmos was just what I wanted to do.

Mary Lake Trail

Acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas.

18x24"

My adventure into acrylics began last fall with this painting. It was a challenging first try and of course I had to chose a larger size, to make it even more difficult. I worked from reference photos taken at Itasca State Park, one of my favorite places to be. The sun shining through the trees was very inspirational.

Pine Lake Swans

Pastel

9x12

I did this painting on location at the Tamarac National Wildlife Refuge. I actually did two that day, you will see the other painting, Next Year's Asters, on my pastel page. It was a wonderfully quiet and relaxing day to myself.

Oxeyes by the Water

Pastel

19x25

I wanted to express a happy, relaxed feeling for the viewer. I chose velour paper for a softness and used the colors to give a bright but calm emotion.

Chamber's Creek

8x10

Pastel on paper

 

I started this painting on location at Itasca State Park. It was late in the day and I wasn't sure if I wanted to start another painting, but I am glad did. Stepping over the creek bank and seeing the color of the grass was astonishing. Working the violets and golds in with the turquoise was exciting.

This turned out to be one of my favorites.