Heat and Light
I try not to get too hung up on finding the perfect spot to select for painting. I could spend the better part of the morning looking for just the right spot, and miss the everything else. This time I scrambled down to the creek bed and set up with the sun behind me. I had the creek, some river bank and some cotton wood populars facing me with a meadow and clear sky behind. Great. A bit of shadow, a lot of light, and some great pure colours. I set up my pochade and got my paints ready.
I wanted to try a claybord surface from Ampersand. I had used it before, but not for several months, so it seemed a good time to try it out again. I set the pochade lid at a fairly steep rake to allow the watercolours to blend and bleed as much as possible. It was already warm so I'd have to work quite quickly. I chose cerulean blue for the sky to force myself to get a light feel to the piece. I would usually chose cobalt blue which I think is closer to the Alberta sky colour, but cerulean blue is a brighter blue and that's what I was going for. I chose scarlet lake for the river bank, again not as the natural colour, but to give a brighter feel to it.
All the way along I made the same choices: brighter, sharper colours. I worked quickly, moving down the board and I liked the runnel effects of the paint mixing itself as I went. I was really aware of not overworking any area, but keeping the pace up and letting the sun dry it as I went. An hour and a quarter later I stepped back and looked at it critically. I was quite pleased - a bit clumsy, perhaps, but it was fresh, sun-drenched and very impressionistic.
Last week's piece had been all about shapes and planes. I was really excited about the variety of planes the park provided, and wanted to see what I could do with an essentially horizontal painting using only aerial perspective to created depth. This week it's all colour and light.
