Saturday, September 27, 2014

PAINTING THE PORCH

One of the reasons I like working with watercolor is the juicy and dramatic effects which can come from floating pigment across wet paper. I found a series of internet tutorials by Linda Baker using a technique of pouring and splashing that really made the process fun. I used a photo I’d taken of our front porch as a reference, worked it into a sketch, decided where the darks and lights would be and transferred the outlines to a piece of watercolor paper.

I used masking fluid to cover the areas I wanted to remain the color of the white paper and then dropped in the primary colors of red, yellow and blue on the rest.

When the paper was completely dry, I again masked out everything I wanted to stay a light shadow and added more color to the remaining painting.

The process is repeated again with more mask on the middle darks and more paint.

This time I used mostly blue to cover the areas not masked out.

Finally I added a dark blue, with a few areas of red and a bit of yellow, to the deepest shadow areas. I let it dry overnight, peeled off the masking and added in the details for the final painting.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love how you can change the mood!!

joeh said...

Each section looked to me like you were going to completely screw it up...the final product is really cool.

If I could do stuff like that I wouldn't blog.

Alica said...

Oh wow...that is amazing!

Val said...

Dang! How'd you do that? I know you just told us, but I'm flabbergasted.

Florida Farm Girl said...

Oh, that's wonderful. I always admire your work, no matter the subject.

Terry and Linda said...

Excellent! I feel like I could sit and relax.

Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com

Janice Grinyer said...

Sigh. You are such a good artist, Leenie!

Elizabeth said...

You are so super talented!
Loved this relaxing porch picture!

Carla said...

Holy cow!! Those are AMAZING!
Stupid question---how did you get the masking tape off the paper w/o it tearing the painting?

Leenie said...

Carla: The masking I used is a liquid medium similar to rubber cement but made specifically to be used on watercolor paper. It peels off most of the time without any problem. I use Ace Hardware masking tape around the outside of the painting. It's the best brand I've found for the job.

TALON said...

What an awesome painting, Leenie! You are not only talented, but so skilled. I know how difficult and tricky water color painting is.

Hope you had an amazing summer! Was lovely to come back and see one of your gorgeous paintings.

Pearl said...

Just gorgeous. :-)

Pearl