Spring Has Sprung!

Happy "official" FIRST DAY OF SPRING! 

"Spring has returned.The Earth is like a child that knows poems."  ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

 

"Spring Mare"

Signs of Spring #4 - $45.00

5" x 7" Double Matted Original Watercolor Painting

This piece ships with a foam core backing in an acetate sleeve

and is ready to fit into a standard frame.

I wanted to give this pony another workout using the glazing technique.  Starting with an under-painting of spring colors, yellow, red and blue, I first wet the paper on both sides, like my usual wet-in-wet approach. The background wash was done at the same time as the first glaze of pastel colors on the horse, as illustrated in step one of my previous post. I let the paper dry and then followed the advise of my friend and accomplished watercolorist, Carmella Tuliszewski. You can read her very thoughtful and informative comment on my last post. I mixed my primary color's compliments into the base color, using only the original three colors, for the shadow areas and eliminated the neutral grey wash entirely. This was actually done in only two steps. It is much closer to my vision for the piece and I am considerably happier with today's results.

"Science has never drummed up quite as effective a tranquilizing agent as a sunny spring day." ~ W. Earl Hall

Mare with Spring Colors Turns into Midnight Mare

I've been getting inspired by all the great artists and different techniques that people share here online. I decided to try a different technique today using glazing. This is totally different from my usual wet-in-wet direct approach. I decided to try to figure this out. I wanted to use an under-painting of spring colors for my "Signs of Spring" project this month.

Step 1

I admit that I am flying by the seat of my pants here. It started off OK with this somewhat random under painting of pastel colors in step one.

Step 2

In step two, I added some facial detailing and darker values using a neutral grey.  I think this is where I started to go wrong. Too dark too soon?

Step 3

In step 3, my background really got away from me. It is way darker than I had wanted. Then I started darkening the values of the horse more than planned. This didn't come out how I had envisioned, but I learned a lot today. Yes, I'm going to give it another go, Kathryn! As photographer, Mike Wallace said;  "You have to try to figure things out. You have to fail with a purpose."

Any critiques, suggestions, instructions or comments on this would be greatly appreciated, thank-you, friends!