Shadows

Hi , I have been very busy here in Devon, not painting but looking after visitors, dealing with teenagers, and their busy lives. My son is home from Uni, which is lovely, but he uses my car, and needs feeding at all hours of the day and night. 

We also seem to have experienced every season there is  these past few days, beautiful sunshine at Sidmouth

 

Then high winds , hail, and rain yesterday, but between the gusts the sun came out, and I was able to pick some wild garlic , for our tea .

Over the Easter weekend our local village had it's annual concert, and the highlight for me was listening to my son play The Kingfisher’s hour (2021) - for solo piano - Atsushi Yamanaka.

The piece of music which used my painting on it's cover, after being contacted by the Japanese composer.

So enough about my weekend, but I hope it explains why this is a short, but hopefully sweet blog, to give you watercolourists an important tool in your watercolour tool box.

Shadows, and their impact on a painting.

Here is a Devon lane piece without the shadows.

Now I like to make my shadow colour with cobalt blue and Cadmium red. Mix the two together and make a puddle, always paint out of a puddle. You can use blue and brown, but I like this mixture, it gives the piece some warmth I think.

Make sure you have enough to keep going, as shadows are all about confidence and keeping to your goal. 

Begin in the distance, and follow the topography of the lane, 

Leave gaps where the light shines through. Keep going, you only get one chance at this, and with all things practice makes perfect. 

But see what a difference it makes suddenly the lane 'pops'. 

 Hope you all had a great Easter Weekend too x