I shamelessly stole this blog entry title from
Clive Powsey's self-published book of the same title. He is an incredibly accomplished h2o Canadian artist who has spent years in the Canadian mountains watercoloring water, earth, and vapor. I was the very first purchaser after I saw the book on his latest post. I just completed a private water color lesson at my studio with one of my ex-Sacramento City College students. She and her husband took a cruise through the inland passage on the west coast of Canada. She sent me several photos, and I chose one for the both of us to paint...dark storm clouds, mountains, trees, and the ocean water of the passage. The clouds were painted wet-on-wet with a large round h2o brush. The water was wet- on- dry painted with a large flat brush. After they both dried (sky and water), the tree and shore lines were painted inas wellas the distant mountain range. Also some embellishments were added to the water. The other water color is of a large breaking storm wave on the coast of Oregon. There are small tree- covered islands just off shore, and that is why you see those trees popping up over the breaking wave. Again the sky was painted wet-on-wet just up to the top of the breaking wave. After that all dried, the trees, rocks and wavelets were painted wet- on -dry. Notice all the warm and cool colors I painted the rocks in. Some of the splashes on the rocks were picked out with the point of an Exacto knife.
OK, OK!!!!! These two efforts may not match what Clive does, but I still humbly submit these two to you, dear reader. Click on my link to Clive and buy his book!
Both of these "plein air" paintings are in different stages of doneness or completion. I paint on site in acrylic using a Sta- Wet palette and Golden Open slow drying acrylic paint that will not crust over, especially during our warm and dry Sacramento Valley summers. The painting of the Elkhorn Basin Ranch (16"X20" on stretched canvas) is 98% completed. The only elements left to refine are the fence/gate in the right side foreground and the foreground dry grass. The water way you see was built by the rancher for migratory birds. This ranch was growing alfalfa and corn feed when I was there. The other acrylic (20"X20" on stretched canvas) is only 50% completed, but it represents a lot of hard work with the complex composition and perspective. It is a children's roller coaster ride with the coaster in the form of a Chinese dragon. This represents about 2 hours of solid painting. After that period the sunlight has radically changed, and I'm ready for a rest! I was very happy with the initial blocking in and resulting composition. I took a few photos before and during the blocking in painting and will use those as reference to complete the scene in my studio. That is why I put quotes around "plein air", because with challenging perspectives and relatively large canvas sizes, I never am able to finish them on site. I will post the finished Dragon roller coaster acrylic within a few weeks.
