So now we are in the middle of Autumn! A season of changes as temperatures fall and days get shorter. And what’s the first thing that comes to mind? The leaves on the trees of course! And what beautiful colors they become, red orange and yellow. Although Autumn is my least favorite season, this transition is just about the only positive thing I can think of. Alena Hennessy’s Watercolor Wonder on-line classes was a perfect opportunity to paint about this!
The Start
In this unit “Birds, Trees…”, we paint in pairs again using watercolors. I opted for two seperate sheets of Canson’s A4 Watercolor paper laid side by side and secured with a masking tape to keep the paper from buckling. Pencil sketch followed which was quite a challenge since I have very little experience drawing trees and birds. Still a great way to explore beyond my comfort zone! Much of the ideas though was from Alena’s but slightly adjusted to my style. As you can see, these two separate paintings are actually joined as one with the continuity of the hills on the same landscape.
Vice Versa
Painting on one big sheet was also possible too, as I realized later on, but working in two’s turned out to be a good idea after all. How about green leaves on trees with earthy hills on one sheet and for the other, red and orange leaves and green hills? We can illustrate the transition into Autumn! First I began with the background with a wash of light blue Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolor.
As the series do tell a story, I worked back and forth simultaneously between the two paintings to keep my mind flowing. For the trees and hills, I decided to experiment with new tube sets of watercolors I had bought in Japan last year: Kusakabe’s Harmonia Granulating Watercolors. They come in two sets, (one called Plus) which imply warm and cool tones. Each tube of paint is composed of a number of pigments combined into one so you can see the “granulating” effect as they seperate. To be honest, I myself couldn’t notice it much but I am now told that a lot of water is needed for that to happen. Will keep that in mind!
Although I worked back and forth on both paintings, I would like to show you the “before autumn” side of the painting. The shades from the Granulating watercolors are nevertheless amazing as you see more closely in each of the paintings. As for the birds, I went for teal and violet from the aforementioned Kuretake Gansai Tanbi. Look how vivid and beautiful they turned out! This set also includes gold which was applied on the birds’ “halos”. The photo doesn’t do much justice but the gold was indeed stunning too.
And below we have the “now autumn”! Obviously, the greens I had used on the leaves “Before” were applied on the hills, and the reds/oranges on the hills were used on the leaves. This resulting switch around between the red and greens certainly makes an interesting composition when both paintings are laid down together side by side as they are also meant to be joined as one painting. Notice how the birds, too, have remained the same colors.
Another fun session with Alena Hennessy’s classes! What I love about them is that we get to learn and practice effective watercolor techniques with an abstract art setting, something completely different and more interesting for me. The fact that I realized I only too late that I could have made one big painting instead of a pair further allowed me to create something even more original! Things do indeed happen for a reason. Now I do look forward to the next lesson!
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My Kawaii Quarter 