To glaze or not to glaze, this is the question.

Here is my watercolor picture of Winter Wonderland. If you had an opportunity to visit Swallow Falls State Park in Maryland then this picture would look familiar to you. This waterfall is much wider in real life but to improve composition I decided to narrow it a little. This trick let me bring trees that grow on the opposite sides of the river closer together and create a nice opening for the misty background forest.

            At a first glance the picture looked finished but after a while I noticed that it was lacking the depth. Since Winter sceneries are mostly white it is hard for us artists to emphasize shadows, and shadows add the depth.

In such situation simple glazing can improve the picture. Glazing is a well-known watercolor technique that involves painting wet-over-dry picture.  Because watercolor pigment, even when dry, is not fixed to the paper, glazing needs to be done very gently. To do so, I used a very soft and large brush. I loaded it with diluted paint. I mixed previously used indigo and crimson red and started darkening the background and carefully avoiding areas that needed to be white. Then I added shadows to mid-ground snow covered trees. Finally I added an extra layer of paint to the water at the bottom but left the waterfall foam and yellow reflection untouched.

The idea of glazing can sound frightening because it involves painting over a picture that is almost finished and full of details. But if glazing is done properly it brings loose elements of the picture together and simplifies busy compositions. 

So, to glaze or not to glaze?  Definitely glaze!

Warming up a ski run

I've just came back from a ski trip. I was skiing in a beautiful state of Vermont. The mountains were ready, perfectly covered with the white powder. It was a nice change from all that gray Maryland's scenery. Surprisingly there was not too many people there.

The views were spectacular and inspiring, especially from the mountain's summit. Although my sketchbook was in my bag all the time, I wasn't able to sketch. The wind was too cold to remove the gloves from my hands. Nevertheless I wouldn't be myself if I didn't take some photographs. 

Here you can see one of my pictures. I took this one on the trail down the Ramshead Mountain. I knew right away that I would like the scene. Layers of mountains and small figures of skiers are great subjects for a watercolor painting.

Later at home I studied this picture in more detail. I noticed some drawbacks though. Heavy, gray clouds made this picture dull and almost monochromatic. Also the skiers were hardly visible on the dark background full of trees. I knew that I had to rearrange the composition of this picture a little.  

I began with making the sky more dramatic. I painted it with wet-in-wet technique. On the wet paper I threw yellow pale color just to add a little sunshine. Then I painted small part of the clear sky with cerulean blue. I carefully painted around white clouds. At the end I added darker tones to make heavier clouds. I used mixture of french ultramarine and crimson red.
Then I waited until everything dried out. After that, I painted the mountains starting with the farthest one. I used mixture of french ultramarine and crimson red.
The conifer trees were done with a combination of phthalo blue and yellow ocher. To create darker trees in the front I mixed french ultramarine and burnt umber. On my photograph, the trees are in all shades of gray. To change this and warm up the scene, I painted some bushes with yellow ocher and burnt sienna.
To emphasize skiers I painted them on a white background. I also narrowed the ski trail to eliminate the overwhelming whiteness of the snow in the foreground. Thanks to that, the skiers automatically became more pronounced. One of the skier's jacket had neon blue color. I found this tone too destructing so I changed it to the dark gray.
Now my dear readers it is your turn. You can take my photo and paint from it. Modify it to your taste and most of all enjoy the process. Start with quick pencil value sketch, it help to determine what you like. Let me know how it went :)

Winter Charm

Mmmm, the cake looks so tasty that I can eat it. 

Finally Spring

Transformation from caterpillar to butterfly 

Wintry Creek

Today in Maryland we had a beautiful, warm and sunny Saturday. I went hiking in Gunpowder State Park. There was a lot of ice and snow on north side of the mountains, but on the sunny side all snow was gone making the trails muddy and slippery. So my family and I went off the impassible trail and trekked through the woods. We climbed the hill and sat up high on the rocks and looked down at the river below.

My watercolor painting keeps me in a wintry mood. The warm colors of the sunrise indicate the meltdown of snow.  Old, brown grass will soon turn green and the first flowers will bloom. I'm ready for new season.