GREEN IS HARD TO COME BY

Yosemite in Winter, painting done at end of last watercolor class

New Year

New start to watercolor class

Each new watercolor painting feels like I have to learn watercolor all over again. I don't have the 'feel' for it that comes from deep practice. Each time I have to relearn to mix colors together, figure out the right consistency of paint-to-water, and most of all, I have to slow down.

I tend to attack painting. I want quick, masterful results, which rarely, with watercolor, happens for me. I need to go back and remember to draw what I see not what I think the images look like before I apply paint, and I need to know what colors mixed together give me the hue that I am looking for.

And I need to slow down.

I love making color swatches. They help me understand what colors mix together to give me the hues I want. My favorite set is this one which shows a variety of cool and warm greys.

Shades of grey

Painting trees has left me frustrated with making greens. In order to find different greens, I need to understand that both yellows and blues can be warm or cool and can make the resulting mix warm or cool depending on the ratio of yellow and blue. I had been mixing Cadmium Yellow Pale (CYP) together with either Cerulean Blue, Ultramarine Blue or Cobalt Blue. The combinations gave me a warm, almost gold, greenish color. But I wanted a cool green as well.

Can you pick out the warm and cool yellows here?

I went back to basics and made color swatches of different yellows mixed with different blues. I finally found the cool green I wanted with Cadmium Yellow Light and Cobalt Blue. Another version came from mixing Lemon Yellow or Hansa Yellow with Cerulean or Cobalt. 

Here I succeeded with both warm & cool greens

Sketchbook of Trees

Trees aren't always green. At sunset these trees where dark blue (indigo) and light grey

Evergreen trees at sunset

While my watercolor class was on hiatus during the holidays, I decided to concentrate on painting trees. What better way to practice greens? I tried some practice pages and tried to avoid my painting nemesis, Mud. To change the shade or tint of my greens, I added different blues, violet, Burnt Siena into my original yellow and blue. Often they turned to Mud.

By painting every day, I was hoping to leap across to intrinsic knowledge of my colors. Did I succeed? When I set up my painting equipment this Wednesday, I felt that same hesitation before I started. How do I paint with watercolors?

Then I remembered to take time. I sketched out the scene, I made some color swatches, and then before I knew it, I attacked the paper.  Another misfire.

So, I turned the paper over, redrew the scene, made more color swatches, took a deep breath, and slowly, inch by inch began the painting.

Unfinished, but better greens

This week I also took a class with John Muir Laws who demonstrated the use of a flat water brush to make tree shapes.

Check out watercolor classes with Leslie Wilson:
http://www.lesliewilson.net

For a comprehensive list of cool and warm colors, seek Birgit O'Connor's website: http://birgitoconnorwatercolor.blogspot.com/2012/04/warm-cool-colors.html

John Muir Laws, a naturalist, author and illustrator, offers classes in the SF Bay Area:
https://johnmuirlaws.com