Friday, October 21, 2011

Water

One of my upcoming shows is the Waterfowl Festival in Easton, Maryland November 10th -13th. As I looked around at the pieces I was bringing, I realized I didn't have a huge abundance of water paintings and I did not have a single dog painting.
Hmm. How about a dog in water to fill the gap.
For my "water" paintings, I like to work with the water wet-on-wet. I'll start by mixing all the colors I need on my palette. Next I put down my lightest values and work my way to the darkest values. 
Once all my colors are blocked in, I take my blending brush (a very soft square flat) and begin softening the edges between the colors. Sometimes I'll leave an area with thicker paint for texture.

The next step is to work with the water to make it look wet. This might mean adding different "waves", more light or dark, or introducing a new color. If you look carefully, you can see a swath of cerelean blue I added to the left of the dog's head. I felt the water needed it.

I'll keep looking at the water as I continue the rest of the painting

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