Trees, Trees, Trees – and More Watercolor Frustrations

 

3/6/23 water-soluble graphite (from life)

Kathleen Moore’s classes always pack a punch, both in high-quality content and challenging homework assignments. The past week’s homework was especially time-consuming with several hour-long recorded demos to view and multi-part assignments – all of which I was trying to complete while also sketching a hundred people (the fun part was that Kathleen herself is an urban sketcher, and she participated in the One Week 100 People challenge, too – it was fun to sketch with her at the last USk Seattle outing)!

The week’s focus was winter trees, and the first exercise was the most fun for me: Make lots of small, quick gesture sketches of fir trees in graphite or ink. Standing on the Interstate 5 overpass at Northeast 80^th to make these (above and below), I chuckled to myself about how similar these gestures were to the ones I was making of people – trying not to make generic symbols but to capture unique individuals. (Hmmm… maybe I should initiate a One Week 100 Trees challenge?)

3/6/23 water-soluble graphite (from life)

3/6/23 Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pen, FM nib (from life)

The week went downhill from there as watercolor hit the picture. Using a photo I took from the I-5 overpass, I attempted to show subtle differences in fir tree hues and shapes painting direct to watercolor. In the first example, I used only the CMY triad I had showed earlier – what a frustrating, muddy mess! While I had so much fun using that same sunny triad last summer with watercolor pencils, Manganese Blue Hue won’t get dark enough to mix a dark evergreen. In the second attempt, I brought in Sap Green, and that helped a bit.

3/8/23 direct watercolor in Hahnemuhle sketchbook (photo reference)

I asked Kathleen which colors to add to my limited palette to give me a wider range. Conceding that Manganese Blue Hue is a too pale to mix a good dark, she suggested the standbys Burnt Sienna and Ultramarine for neutrals and also to help create darks in other mixes. She also suggested Veridian as a useful, convenient green in the Pacific Northwest.

Well, that was disappointing! I had the unrealistic expectation that CMY could be a one-size-fits-all triad! I bet the pale Manganese could work well on a luminous summer day. The seasonal approach I’ve been using with watercolor pencils might make sense with watercolors, too.

3/8/23 watercolor in Hahnemuhle sketchbook (photo reference)

The next two assignments were about snow-covered fir trees (both from photos, of course; thankfully, we may be snow-free until next winter). The first reserves white for the snow. For the second, I didn’t show the snow on the hemlock branches very well, but let’s just say the snowstorm was just beginning. I splattered a white watercolor pencil to show the falling snow (next time, I might try gouache).

3/8/23 watercolor in Hahnemuhle sketchbook (photo reference)

Grass in a snow field (Kathleen’s reference photo) was my favorite of the week – simple hues of brown and blue and a mix of brushwork and colored pencil lines to show the varying grass strands.

3/8/23 watercolor in Hahnemuhle sketchbook (photo reference)

The next exercise (an imaginary landscape) was in atmospheric perspective – the distant tree line in a cooler hue than the closer tree line, and the foreground tree warmest of all. I didn’t care for most of my trees here (strangely, some of those squared-off trees look more like buildings on a skyline – perhaps it’s the urban sketcher in me), but I sure had fun with the clouds! The mix I made with Alizarin Crimson and French Ultramarine looked gray in the mixing tray, but when the mix hit the wet page, the hues separated into an intriguing result.

3/8/23 watercolor in Hahnemuhle sketchbook (from imagination)

3/9/23 watercolor in Hahnemuhle sketchbook
(photo, imagination and my urban sketching principles
tossed out the window)

The last assignment, a deciduous tree in a snowscape, blew my brain out in multiple ways. I started with a reference photo of a tree I love at Green Lake – but without any snow in sight. I eliminated multiple trees right next to it, put in a small tree in the distance, and faked in all that snow – including imagining how snow might look clinging to the tree bark (painted with gouache). This urban sketcher, who has spent the past 11-plus years “being truthful to the scenes I witness,” was challenged, to say the least.

Whew! I need a nap.