ROBERT J. KRAJECKI .COM - Bob's Blog

Step 9-Final-I hope that you have enjoyed the journey.

1/4/2021

Wrap up.
Keeping the rock transparent was not working, so I decided to just paint it opaque with acrylic white and watercolor paint. Putting the rock in shadow emphasizes the area around the rock as the center of interest. I was also able to change the shape so that it did not look like a “submarine” –which bothered me from the beginning.

At the risk of isolating a color, I put some dark green foliage near the rock to give it some “life”.

Making just one object or area opaque could destroy the unity of the painting, so putting it in shadow helps by putting it in a different lighting.

On to the next subject!

Step 7

1/2/2021

Painting is hard!

Happy with the results but it could be better! That is always the dilemma we are faced with in a painting. I have ruined many paintings by trying to do too much. There are limits to what you can do in a watercolor painting.

Yes, the rocks are too evenly spaced. I tried to add smaller rocks, you can always go darker in watercolor to change the spaces. The smaller rocks were too similar in color and I changed a few of those. I did some scratching for the spray near the center in interest. Wasn’t happy so I tried the tearing technique. That didn’t work because the Khadi paper has very little internal sizing. So, the tearing created “craters” in the paper. I tried burnishing and then applied full strength sizing, and that didn’t work.

Last resort is the use of acrylic white paint. That is working! Because I feel that the painting is one of my better paintings, I want to make one more correction–which could ruin the entire painting. The large dark rock is a bit too dark, so I am going to lift some of the paint to lighten it.

Painting is fun!

The Process -Step 2

12/28/2020

The second wash is near the center of interest and the middle ground. Pattern for me is the most important part of the composition. So knowing where to leave the white of the paper is critical. As I develop the movement in the water, I need to concentrate on the size and shapes.

The Process-Step 1

12/27/2020

Step 1 -paint light to dark in watercolor.
The paper used for this painting is Khadi hand made paper from India. It has a very rough and very irregular texture. It has a lot of very weak surface sizing and very little internal sizing. Therefore it works best when painting directly and not with layering.
I want to get the darkest values on the first application. It is also easy to lift at this stage. So if I do get too dark on the first wash it is easy to lighten later, which I plan to do in the very dark rock.

I started with a very light wash above the rock to make sure that the edges would not be too hard. I will soften it more when I adjust the dark.
This is a full color painting, which means that I will be using all of the colors on my palette. I will limit the use of the yellows because they are too opaque and I want to keep this more transparent.

Watercolor painting-the process

12/26/2020

I have a folder on my computer of subjects that I NEED to paint. After viewing all of them, I am drawn once again to rocks and water. I did some comps on the computer and will now need to do some with paint.
Below is the original photo and then the computer comps.
I will post the steps each day until the painting is completed.

Step 8

12/9/2020

I decided to lift the color in the dark rock to get it lighter, however the colors I used were mostly staining colors and did not lighten very much.

So, I added a wash of white acrylic paint to the area to get it lighter. Now that it is dry, I can go back into that rock to give it some form. The acrylic white will act like gum arabic to seal the surface—in theory.
The warmer rocks that I added to balance the temperature worked well except for the value. I scrubbed the area first to get rid of some of the blue that was there. Scrubbing removed any internal sizing and the pigment is absorbed into the paper. I had to put 4 washes to get it right. I even put some gum arabic to seal the area! So, if you ever try using the Khadi paper, keep in mind that it will be very interesting to work with.

Step 6

12/9/2020

Plan A was to keep the water in the background in the cool blue range of colors to balance the warm colors of the rocks. After finishing that area, I felt that the cool colors were a bit too isolated from the rocks.

Plan B–add some warm colors. I did that as some reflections in the water from rocks that are outside of the composition. That gives the viewer a mental picture of more rocks continuing beyond the water.

One more step to complete the painting and that will be to add any details or contrast or to get rid of any more of the whites.

Step 5

12/9/2020

Once the center of interest is established, I know how much or little to develop in the rest of the composition. Most of this step involves creating more depth and movement in the water in the background. That area is mostly negative space so I don’t want to give it too much contrast so that it becomes positive space. I applied very light washes of Manganese Blue in the top and then some warmer Cobalt Blue and finally some Ultramarine Blue as I came forward in the painting.

I painted over some of the white spaces and left others depending on the movement that I wanted.

There was a little too much cool color and not enough warm color, so I put a warmer wash on the light side of some rocks to balance the temperature.

Step 4

12/9/2020

Establishing the center of interest is the next step. Defining the movement of the water and adding contrast and color near the center area. The key was darkening the water at the base of the large rock to soften the edge.

The shapes of the white spaces to create the movement is critical. Once the white of the paper is eliminated, you can’t get it back unless you resort to scraping and tearing of the paper. As I mentioned, this paper is very soft once the surface size is removed, and will tear easily. I will do some scratching in this area but not until I adjust the white spaces in other parts of the painting. It is amazing how white the whites appear once you get rid of all of the other whites.
The whites that I will keep will be for indication of movement.

Step 3

12/9/2020

The third step is actually the first step of the block-in, which establishes the areas of light, middle and dark values, creating the pattern of the composition. When I painted the lower portion of the composition, I had to keep in mind that I wanted it to be a dark valued area, but not as dark as my darkest part which is the large rock near the top.

Each area of value has a light, middle and dark value. So, this area had to be darker than the value of the rocks on the left side of the painting because I want those to be a middle value, but not as dark as the darkest value.

When I finished this step, I noticed that the darkest rock had a shape that looked like a submarine stuck in the rocks. Planning is the key to a good painting! So, I added a dark shape behind it to disguise the sub. I will do a bit more in the following steps.