Click (below) to Watch Video: I painted this Blue Island House in a little over an hour. I’m going to show you the entire process. You can watch all of the color and timing decisions that I’m making. Blue Island House is available, here, if you’d like to own this original watercolor.
I am traveling while I’m painting this study..so I’m using my custom watercolor travel palette, which I’m growing very fond of. The paper that I’m using is Arches Watercolor and it’s in their sketch pad that’s 6×9.5 inches. It’s kind of a perfect size for smaller paintings. My brush for the sky is moving quickly and yet this is real time, it’s not sped up. I’m choosing to use a flat brush this time. And I’ve mixed up some Cobalt Blue and Ultramarine Blue and Turquoise for color options in the sky. I’m also painting outside on a balcony in Waikiki and so the paper is drying quickly…which is something that I love. Usually I’ll have a blow drier right by my watercolor station to try to speed up the dry time.
I’m leaving white of the paper wherever I think I’d like the clouds to be. This will help create some contrast. Using various blues keeps the ‘blue’ element of the sky interesting. It’s something I’ve always done. The turquoise and the cobalt are sweeter and the ultramarine blue is cooler and tones down the brightness.
Right now I’m working on Simplifying my smaller paintings. I believe this is good training for capturing the essence of a subject quickly. I’ve painted small on and off through the years and can tell you that there’s an art to painting small. If you are used to painting Large, then going small is very challenging.
I’ve noticed that the same statement can often be applied in reverse: artists who usually paint small, I feel like they can more often than not struggle to paint large and have the interest level have the same impact as their small work. When painting small, every brush stroke counts!
It’s easier to overwork a painting, which is something I’m masterful at doing. And especially with watercolor, it’s a rather unforgiving medium so if you go too far with a painting, then it’s near impossible to backtrack a few steps. There’s no undo button. It’s very easy to lose the freshness of an area that might have felt too simple…and yet I feel, too, that there’s boldness in taking risks to see just how far one can push a painting.
Knowing when to stop takes experience…and maybe some luck.
It used to be that it’s difficult to change a given artistic style. I’ve had many conversations through the years with other artists. Today I feel like that statement is no longer true. We have YouTube and social media to show us how other artists are working. This opens up artistic style doors and it allows artists to experiment.
But I do want to go back to concept of painting smaller and being simplified. In watercolor, I feel like artists are either born with a detailed sylte or they have a natural knack at capturing an ambiance with a few brush strokes. Within watercolor, I don’t really see artists who do both…and surely they are out there but it’s not common.
I feel like…actually I KNOW that capturing the essence of these coconut palms is super important to see. It’s very nuanced. All artists who are actually GOOD at them (can miss the mark) and few do it well, to be honest. I am cutting out about 15 m minutes of this because I don’t feel like the view of my hand over the brush strokes serves you. Another time…I’ll paint expressive coconut palms. And again when small, it’s important to not try to say Too much. Or the palm gets overworked and too bushy and the elegant lines that are the wild, untrimmed coconut palm are lost.