Experimental Landscapes: Sunsets and Skies

This week we focused on dynamic skies that can be seen just at the perfect time.  So we painted from southwest sunset images.  The challenge for me was painting on a hot press paper.  If you work over it too much, the surface of the painting starts to get muddied and pilled.  So the trick is to know what you want to do and the sequence in which you want to lay down your paint.  This will allow you to get nice blending of color and keep the watercolor looking fresh.

My son had taken a beautiful photo while on a fishing trip on the Olympic Peninsula.  It was a challenge to get the variation of the sky and cloud colors so I ended up painting the scene twice.  The second version was closer to the color of the sky.  Testing out your colors and selecting a palette of colors is always a good idea if you are trying to color match.  

In the first painting the blue color of the sky was too cool although I preferred the way I handled the clouds in this version.  The second version was closer to the true color of the sky and I was more successful in creating the sense of depth with the mountains.