The Dusky Path of a Dream

"The Dusky Path of a Dream, WIP 1", 9"x12", Watercolor on Arches 140# Cold Press Paper

Another small watercolor I am currently working on. The name comes from a poem by Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941). I especially love the evening purple and muted orange color scheme. Robert Wade is so good in using this particular color scheme and he recommends using cobalt blue, rose madder genuine and raw sienna for achieving the luminous purple-grey and muted oranges. A good part of these three colors is that they are all very transparent, and can be lifted easily for correction. I used a slightly modified color combination for this painting: cobalt blue, permanent rose (slightly darker in value than rose madder genuine, and more permanent) and aureolin yellow (more transparent than raw sienna, and higher in intensity). The sky is done wet-in-wet but not just one pass. I actually had to wet the paper three times with spray bottle to get the darker clouds right in value and shape. Really need to practice wet-into-wet painting more to speed up! Hopefully no mud generated by these three totally transparent colors...

"The Dusky Path of a Dream, WIP 2", 9"x12", Watercolor on Arches 140# Cold Press Paper