In The Studio: 18 Paintings, “Rain on the Water”

This is going to be a really wet one, wet the paper and take the extra water off with a natural sponge, and use a big flat brush, with a lot of darker pigment.  Control the water on the brush with a sponge or shaking it into a trash can.  Remember to have your paper elevated about 30 degrees or you will struggle with the pooling water on the paper.  I used cadmium orange to grey the blues Cobalt and Cerulean and I added some alizirin to keep the mixes lively.  Keep the orange to a minimum it can be deathly.  I also used some raw sienna but pretty much I am staying with the original mixes.brush in a really expressive sky try to get some downward angular marks to indicate some rain showers.  Don’t get too careful here or you will lose the spontaneous quality.  Keep all of these brush marks related to a real sky not a jumble of omni-directional angles.

Keeping with rhythmic marks I have moved down to the rocks and the distance.  I know it is nerve raking but work as damp as you dare it will help the atmosphere of the painting.  The goal is a rainy distance so hard edges are not the goal.Using a 1 inch flat, darken  the mixes with more dryer pigment and state the dark accents on the rocks.  Don’t get so involved with the darks that in the end all of the lights are gone.  OOPS!  Then scape some light off of the top of the rocks, do this a little early to make the edges more soft.  Again this is make the rainy day come about.  Pull out your round brush and paint in the water, make sure the value is not too dark, and really pay attention to the edges, use the side of your brush to soften some of the water marks.