Advancing with Watercolor “Cows and Clouds” Lost and Found Edges

"Beginning with audacity is a very great part of the art of painting"
- Winston Churchill

Description

This is the second episode of an 8 part series on painting the sky. For landscape painters it is a integral part of each painting and can be done in many ways

The Project

In this weeks project we look at creating clouds in a blue sky over a pasture of grazing cows. While the cows are fun and give the scene some authenticity - they real subject is the clouds and cloud shadows

The Design

In the drawing we start to think about creating an interesting design loosely based on the image. The clouds I have in mind are a little different but I am using the image of the cows in the field to give me an inspiration for placing trees hills cows and shadows.
We create a stage, a lead in and use other visual cues to lead the viewer through the painting...

The Technique - Lost and Found Edges

The technique in this painting is an extension of the drills of clouds the we practice in the beginning of this lesson. This begins without much drawing of the clouds themselves - perhaps a few directionals.

Then we apply a pattern of cloud shapes as though we were painting the clouds themselves. This is done with a pale color
we follow this with an application of blue sky between the clouds reveling the cloud shapes with the addition of lost and found edges

A watercolor will paint itself... if you let it

Drills

I like to start a session by doing a drill or a study to get my body and mind in sync and to start to "feel" the watercolor. 

The drills we practice in this lesson (3) are focused on placing clouds into the sky and developing the technique used for creating lost and found edges

The Tonal Study

I almost always proceeds each project with a tonal study - a watercolor in a single color - to better understand the light and dark relationships and composition...

The Challenge

We use patterns to create our cloud shapes - this is a difficult part of out design technique -  difficult because we are not so good a random - we are better at repetitive marks so this requires some concentration

We also have a challenge in the watercolor technique -  timing aspect. Ideally the paper is just starting to dry here and there so that our clouds have a variety of edges

The Skills We Develop

The skills we develop in this project are creating patterns based on certain types of clouds grouped in the sky

We also develop a better understanding of the timing aspect in creating the edges of our clouds and  a better understanding of the water/ pigment ratio...