New Beginnings!

"Highland Sunset", 6"x9", Watercolor on Arches 140# Cold Press Paper

I have been trying to paint and draw more regularly for the past year, and it seemed a rational choice to try to record these daily efforts so that I could push myself going. A lot of painters I admire started to do daily painting exercises and post them on the blog. These blog posts are my regular source of inspiration and now it is time to follow. Anyway, you can't get better just by reading other people's daily painting posts. I will try to paint everyday, at least for one to two hours. Being a graduate student is time-consuming, sure, but maybe not more than a lot of artists who also have day jobs! No more excuses, off to paint! And I will try to post everyday's effort on this blog before going to bed...

The small watercolor painting I am posting today is based on a photo of Scottland. It was greatly influenced by the powerful mountain paintings of David Bellamy (http://www.davidbellamy.co.uk/main.htm). I really admire the dextrous brushwork and clean, crisp varigated washes in his mountain paintings, and was trying my best to utilize both in the small study above. The varigated wash has been used to create the sunset skies and the main blue mountain. I was trying to capture some reflected cloud color on the right side ridge and hopefully it did not turn to mud (:-P). I tried to use some brushwork on the forground lakeshore as well as to discribe some texture of the main mountain. So far the brushwork still looks too contrived and uniform. Needs more practice of different caligraphic lines!

The background mountains, middle ground hills (so barren, treeless in the photo) and foreground shorelines have totally different color schemes. I was trying to use a sunset color wash (pale cadmium scarlet and permanent rose) to unify the whole scene but was not sure whether it was successful. The whole painting is relatively low-key and do not have true-white of the paper color, and I think this gives it a more sober sense of the evening. I feel that I should not work on it any more, otherwise it would bound to turn into mud. Maybe I'll let it sit around the studio a bit and see if I can improved it with a fresh eye after some time!

Buy this artwork from Imagekind: