Advancing with Watercolor: Textures of Tuscany "The Gate"

In this six week series I have focused on how the watercolorist uses edges to create an image. Beyond that how the artist may bring about the intangibles such as mood and atmosphere by the use of hard edges, soft edges and lost and found edges.In my opinion the media of watercolor is unique in its potential for creating mood, atmosphere and light through an fluency using edges. Much of this is rooted in perception. Seeing the soft edge of the shadow, or the rough edge of a stone, or the lost and found edge in a cloud.A great amount of what we do is technical, and goes hand in hand with our ability to to weave a story, or express a moment when we saw something , something that we wanted to share. It starts with perception.

Composition

In this series many if not most of the compsitions at designed around an important intersection = the vertical and the horizontal. This intersection creates a natural point of tension and a structure to build the painting around

Notan

The Notan is a VERY simplified and Stylized sketch that uses Black and white to design the shapes - forcing me to choose what is absolutely necessary  and what is supportive about the composition

The Tonal Study

The tonal study eliminates the need to replicate all the colors and allows me to organize my painting into lights and darks. These lights and darks can be modulated for effect and the simple approach helps greatly when facing this complex composition - an added benefit is I can create more variety in edges