Seasonal Palette - Winter

Fence Posts in the Snow

Watercolor 11" x 15" Mats to 16" x 20"

My watercolor above, Fence Posts in the Snow, is one of my favorite winter season paintings for my watercolor students to paint.  It utilizes several techniques, but is a painting a beginner can accomplish and enjoy.

This week, I'll introduce the winter palette.

Even if isn’t covered with snow, the winter landscape rarely contains bright colors. Although bold red and yellow colors may be useful in other season, they are usually unnecessary in winter. Even bright greens may have limited use, as winter foliage tends to be dull and subdued – particularly the dark evergreen of conifers and the faded grey-green of grasses that have lost their summer freshness.

Winter Palette Colors:

• Payne’s Gray
• Ultramarine
• Burnt Sienna
• Sap Green
• Burnt Umber
A palette of only 5 colors is usually all that are needed for the winter palette. The slightly cool Payne’s Gray is a good starting point for all mixes. It can be used with Ultramarine for the sky and cold shadow colors. Sap green is good for foliage with burnt umber and burnt sienna to all some warmer tones.

Trees and their shadows are made from the following colors:
• Sap Green
• Payne’s Gray
• Burnt Umber

Sky and shadows reflecting the sky are mixed from:
• Ultramarine
• Payne’s Grey

Warmer foreground shadows are mixed from:
• Ultramarine
• Burnt Sienna
• Payne’s Grey

Winter Light
With so few local colors present in the typical winter landscape, your choice of colors will be dictated by the weather and the light. On a cloudy day, the landscape can appear monochromatic – simply a range of blacks, whites, and grays with subtle tinges of green, blue, and brown. In this case the emphasis will be on mostly neutral colors – Payne’s gray and burnt umber.

Colored Shadows
If you are painting a winter scene in sunshine, the sun will bring out a spectrum of blue and warm good that require the addition of ultramarine and burnt sienna. Sunlight winter grasses will require solid sap green.

As the sun appears closer to the horizon in winter than it does in summer, it creates longer shadows. These shadows contain a lot of color – particularly blues and green. Against the whiteness of snow, they can appear very translucent and bright with color.

Contrasting Tones
Snow creates extreme contrasts. The lightest tone is the dazzling whiteness of the snow itself; the darkest tones will be created by the silhouettes of trees and other objects.

Watercolor is the perfect medium for a wintery painting because you can use the unpainted white paper to represent the snow. The bright whiteness of snow makes everything else in the landscape appear dark in comparison.

Opaque White
Opaque white can be used in the final stages of a winter painting. This can be used as scattered snowflakes, which lend a decorative and realistic touch to a scene. This is an effective detail, which you can add to any snowy landscape.

Simply spatter the finished painting lightly with white and grey. The white will show up against the dark tones; the grey will stand out from the white snow.

Warning: White paint contains chalk. When white is added to other pigments the resulting colors become pale and chalky….this can destroy the natural transparency of watercolor paints. White paint is best reserved for special effects.

Happy Painting!
Karen






Happy Thanksgiving!

Drying Time
Watercolor 9" x 12" Mats to 14" x 16"

For those of you who do not live in an area where tobacco is grown or have never traveled through parts of the United States where tobacco is grown and dried, I wanted to let you know that the watercolor above is of tobacco drying in a barn.  Tobacco is grown in the southern United States, especially in Virginia and if often seen drying in large open ended barns.  Although I don't smoke, I like the color of the dried tobacco leaves and the throw back to earlier times.  Virginia tobacco leaves go from green, to yellow, to brown.  And my painting above shows some leaves in various stages of drying.

In my painting above, I focused on the contact of the dark interior of the barn and the lighter wood of the barn, and of course, the various shades of the drying tobacco.

Watercolor tip:
The tobacco leaves were first painted yellow and using a wet on wet technique, shades of yellow ochre, burnt sienna, and Van Dyke Brown were dropped in and allowed to blend.  After the tobacco leaves were dry, veins were added.  Color was lifted to lighten the veins, then Sepia was used to add a little detailed veining on the rest of the leaves.

Although this is not a traditional Thanksgiving painting, it reminds of the the fall season, harvest, and the pilgrims who settled the United States.

Happy Painting and Happy Thanksgiving!

Karen

Fall in the Smokies!

Autumn Cascades
Watercolor 9" x 12" Mats to 14" x 16"

Fall is almost over.....snow fell in the upper elevations of the Smoky Mountains this past week.  So, trees like the ones in the painting above will some be bare. 

Since the rocks will not change, but remain the same for all seasons, my blog today will give directions for painting the rocks.

How to Paint Rocks:
The rocks are painted with a wash of raw umber, burnt umber, ultramarine. Light washes are added with the darker colors added to the bottom, sides and edges of the rocks. Apply clean water to the drying paint to add texture. The water pushes the paint outwards, breaking up its regular drying pattern, scattering the particles of paint. As they dry, the “watermark” can be seen, providing an appearance of wetness and texture.



How to Paint the Mountain Stream:
As water tumbles across rocks and boulders and breaks around them, areas of white water appear. In watercolor, the best way to convey this is to leave areas of white paper showing as you paint around rocks and boulders. The more white paper you leave, the faster the water appears to be moving. Remember: Water rarely flows in a straight line. Paint the water area with a light wash of yellow ochre and will in with lines of raw and burnt umber….very light washes. Remember to leave areas white. When dry scratch off tiny flecks of paint with a sharp knife to represent light bouncing from breaking water. To create a feeling of distance, space the scratched areas of paper unevenly – closer together in the far background, further apart in the foreground. Reflected shapes in moving water appear as colors rather than discernable images.

Happy Painting!
Karen


 

Grab Your Salt Shaker!



Seasons at Herb Parsons Lake

Watercolor 9" x 12" Mats to 14" x 16"

An old tree with with a broken off limb made for an interesting subject found during an outing at a nearby lake.    This early fall scene made for an interesting subject to paint.

The background was painted in shades of green and orange which were allowed to blend together with no definition of trees, grasses, or leaves - only the impression of them.  Thus the emphasis was placed on the tree trunk and leaves.

Watercolor tip:

Now grab that salt shaker!

The lichen was painted by dropping in several shades of green and generously sprinkling with salt.  When the paint and salt dried, it was bushed off to the reveal the white areas of lichen shaped spaces.  No extra painting required!  This same technique was used in the area of the tree trunk on the upper right side where the bark had fallen off.  I dropped in various colors of paint:  Paynes' Gray, Yellow Ochre, and Burnt Umber painting wet on wet.  While the paint was still wet, the salt was applied.

Use different types of salt to create different sizes of shapes.....table salt, pretzel salt, and even ice cream salt make some interesting designs in the paint.

So grab that salt shaker and see what happens!

Happy Painting!

Karen