Along the Illinois River

Most of the paintings that I do are in “full color”, which means that I will use all of the colors on my palette –3 reds, 3 blues, 3 yellows and several brown or earth colors, choosing a few of the colors as the dominant color theme.
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My choices for the dominant colors in this piece were: Cadmium Yellow Light, which is a cool yellow, Quinachradone Gold, which is yellow-orange, Pthalocyannine Green, which is a blue-green color, and Brown Madder, which is a red-brown color.

The paper that I chose for the painting is Khadi with a rough texture. This paper has very little sizing in the paper, but a lot of surface sizing.

​Step 1 in the process was wet in wet. I lightly sprayed the entire paper with water–wetter at the top, but not as wet toward the bottom. Because I want to leave some of the white of the paper at the bottom, it had to be almost dry when I got to that area.

I started with a light wash of Quinachradone Gold, which is a very intense pigment, and then at the base of the trees with some Brown Madder and Pthalocyannine Green.
By the time I reached the bottom portion of the painting, the paper was almost dry enabling me to work in selected areas of the white.