March 28 - all about the values

 Another couple of hours concentrating on mostly the values. To achieve realism the lights and darks have to be right. Many paintings fail because of washed out differences between the lightest and darkest values. It’s hard to judge how dark something like a shadow really is and scary to put a very dark colour on a very bright area. It’s especially hard in watercolours because what a colour looks like when you first put it on is not what it will be when it dries. Watercolours dry 30% lighter than when they are applied. That is why there has to be many washes of colour as I gradually build up the darker values. The other problem with dark values is that the eyes and brain of a person viewing the scene in real life looks different than a photo. In real life the brain adjusts what it sees in the shadows for better vision. A picture records the values really there. That’s why the artist has to make constant decisions about how dark things in shadows should be to get the effect they are trying to achieve.

Most of this session was concentrating on the furniture and shadows on the wall. Still more washes to come.

Mar 27 - More trees

 Today was mostly for the first washes on the trees on the right. I also worked on the shadows on the walls. Still a long way to go. The corners are curling because of all the water soaking the paper but I’ll straighten everything at the end.

March 26 - mostly trees

 Today the focus was on building up layers of vegetation on the trees on the left. I also started the first washes on the trees on the right, did a few more washes on the grass and worked on shadows on the walls.

March 25 - another couple of hours

 Work today was scattered all over the painting. I removed the masking fluid on the trees on the left after putting in the dark background. The finished trees won’t look like they have balls of leaves when finished. I had to leave the white of the paper under parts so the brighter green will show up in future layers. 

March 24 - today’s work

 Today was for working on large areas. Layers of colour in foreground and background as well as a lot of masking fluid has been applied to both. That needed drying time between layers and is still in place waiting for more darker layers.

March 23 progress

 Another couple of hours work today. More fiddly work on the windows, door, and furniture then starting to block in where the trees are going to be so I can start painting the shadows on the cottage before putting them in.

The next step

 It’s getting harder to name these posts. Maybe I’ll start using the date.

Today I worked on the first washes on the furniture working out where everything is. There is still so much to do that I pick what areas to work on depending on how I feel that morning. LOL. Towards the end there is no choice. You work on what isn’t finished or needs correcting.