Mini Mountains

Back to Alena Hennessy’s Watercolor Wonder on-line classes! Here is the third lesson called Playful Shapes in which we create an abstract landcape piece using a range of bright vivid colors. And what a fun session that was as we get to play around with colors and observe how they flow together to create something special!

Background

My A3 piece of Cansons Watercolor 300gsm paper was firstly taped down on the sides to avoid buckling when wet. For this class, I went for Komorebi’s set of fluorescent colors and a pan of Jane Davenport’s watercolors as it has a good range of bright vivid shades. Wet the paper first with a thick brush and then randomly spread various colors to create a colorful wash almost resembling the sky and an empty field. A bit of gold from the Finetec metallic range was also introduced in the grassy area at the bottom. Remember that this is intended to be an abstract painting so the colors should not matter.

Mini Mountains

After letting the background dry, we draw our fun shapes! I decided to follow Alena this time and go for some semi circles across the page, as if we were to paint a range of colorful hills or mountains. Started at the bottom and worked my way up and beginning with pink of course as it’s my favorite color. Some fluorescent pink was also mixed in the magenta. Then we have violet, purple, blue and the greens. This involves adding some of the excess paint on the next range of mountains so that you get gradation and color continuity. Like Alena, I really love that feathering when different colors merge. A few rows of them, and I was done!

Although this painting was intended to be experimental, I am very pleased with how it turned out. I might even have it framed! The use of such brilliant colors really radiates positive energy, especially needed during the unusually poor weather this Spring. And as I had so much fun with this painting, I might even try to produce a similar one but with a different color scheme and even another shape. It is such a pleasure painting with Alena, and I do look forward to her next lesson!

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