Wet on Dry Painting

Since I already had most of the colors the author recommended, I created several new palettes (using those cheap, round 10-well palettes) with the prescribed colors so that I had a better chance of approximating the results that the author achieved. You may or may not decide to do the same.

Before getting into the first section on trees, the book (pp, 22 - 27) discusses two of the major ways of putting paint onto paper: the wet on dry and the wet-on-wet methods. I have typically had a very tough time getting large smooth areas of color when using the wet on dry method, whereby I used wet paint on my brush on dry watercolor paper. This was so troublesome for me that I tend to avoid this method for larger areas like skies. However, I followed the instructions on p. 22 and didn't do too badly. However, I also found that I'd made rather a mess of the rest of the painting (for which there were no directions), so did another version, since it was a simple composition.

Here is the painting used as an illustration for this wet on dry technique.

When I looked at this painting, I figured that the artist had used the blue in the sky down to the ground, using additional washes, putting more green into the blue. This is how I painted my first version.

While the sky isn't too bad, I think I tried to add the next wash for the mountain and the trees, before the previous one had dried. And the splotchiness is what happened. Nor was I able to fix it which is my main reason for doing another version.

LEARNING: Either wait until the paper is completely dry before adding another wash on top of it OR be sure the initial paint is still wet enough to allow additional color to be dropped into it. 

In this case, given the shape of the mountains and the trees, I think I should have waited until the initial blue wash had completely dried. Here is my second attempt. In this one I only took the blue of the sky down to the mountain and then stopped, let it dry, then added the trees after the mountain had dried. Although this is not what I suspect the author wanted, I felt more confidant painting this way.

Although not as smooth as the book's version, both the mountain and the trees are better than in the first version, as are the rest of the elements in this painting, and am much happier with it. I have to say that the color scheme here is quite interesting. I don't think I would have thought of it on my own.

I felt confidant that I knew how to create a varigated wash so skipped the exercise on pp. 24 & 25.