Day 27: May or May Not Be

As I mentioned in a prior post, I was planning on doing a painting for a cousin of mine. Depending on how things go, this could be the start of it!



My basic idea here is a night scene with snowy pine trees using a mix of watercolour and gouache. The initial painting, which is now drying, is to establish the basic night sky using a three different colours on to a pre-wet page.

Materials to start are:

  • Fabriano Artistico 9x12 Cold Pressed 140lb block
  • W&N Winsor Blue watercolour
  • W&N Winsor Violet watercolour
  • W&N Indigo watercolour

The idea being that I can create some depth to the night sky with varying degrees of "darkness" in the blues. By wetting the paper first, the paints then spread and merge creating a more real feeling to the result.

After letting that generally dry, I go back to it with white gouache to create some "stars" in the sky.  Basically, this is when you get to have fun with splatters! I'm doing this now because my brain is telling me it will be easier than trying to shield my main focal point from it later.

So, now, I'm going to let this fully dry in the hopes that the shrink back from the wetness will flatten the page back in the block. From there, it's the trees! I want to do one of the pines that I create up as a Christmas tree and, I'm contemplating adding a snowman in this mix somehow. We'll see! What the heck, if it works out, awesome, but if not, I'll try again.