Capturing Colour and Light in Watercolours

Autumn is here in Perth,  what a splendid relief! Lovely pleasant days of cloudy skies to get outside and enjoy nature. And Paint!    The watercolour painting,  “Colours of Autumn” reflects the gentle beauty of the season we are now in.

Step one is of course the inspiration, next is the colour selection and the mixing the paints.

For my  Autumn palette I’d planned on it  being quite warm with orange, sunflower yellow, golden umber, burnt umber for some darks.   I wanted the background of the painting and the water area to be the same warm butter yellow, as if it was just at dawn.

I dampened the Masa paper thoroughly, applied my lighter colours first. Next the mid tones, quickly so that the colours would merge nicely. Then the darkest tones last.

I let the colours run down by gently tilting the paper just a little, then sitting it back down.   I finished it by using a skewer to ‘draw’ into the tree  foliage areas to create a few tree trunks and branches.  It needed to be done ….  judiciously.  Or run the risk of creating chaotic frenzied lines all over that can not be  removed.

I did a fast check to make sure that there was  plenty  soft edges and sufficient ratios of light tone, mid tone and dark tone. Looked ok! Fairly quick & simple, and no mud as long as I use a light touch,  and don’t get carried away with too many colours.

This was a good sample of the type of painting that our classes at the UWA extension    “Watercolour Landscapes for Beginners”  will be working on next term, as are the paintings below.