In The Studio: Painting 24 of 90, “In The Hollow”

15 x 22 watercolor on arches rough paper.  Have fun with the reflections and all of the textural marks, scrapes, and details.  Still keep it loose and flowing, try not to get bogged down on the pieces of the painting, keep thinking all over.  I used a wide range of colors, and painted with a 1.5 in brush to start and finished the details with a 12 round and 4 script liner.paint this part of the painting with the wide brush and don’t over mix the colors let each one have a voice in the mix.  I was using olive green with new gamboge, ultramarine blue, and burnt sienna.  After the paint sets up for a while and just loses its’ glisten scrape out some highlights and trees with the side of a sharp knife’s blade.  Pull some reflections down into the water area.

Paint the foreground with a round brush, applying the paint with the side of the brush.  Work in some darker passages with burnt sienna and ultramarine blue.  Scrape the rocks and a few weed marks, I said a few not a million.

detail of figures and trees on the left, keep the strokes loose and don’t fidget with the details, just expression not real.

detail of figure on the right and the foreground weeds, this is a little darker than the painting but you get the point.  Okay so how’s the painting going?  Even if you have not kept up with the daily routine, start today you can still work out 30 paintings in 30 days, I mean if you want to get better than paint more read less.  All of those wonderful painting books are useless if you don’t practice, that’s how the authors of those books got good.  They painted they weren’t born with a brush in their hands.  Although some of them would like to make it seem so difficult that only they can do it.