It has continued to rain, and rain, and rain all day today… the garden is getting a very good drink and I’ve been soaked twice walking the dog. It’s quite windy too so even an umbrella won’t save you, it just comes at you from every side.
It didn’t stop me getting to painting class though and we’ve had some fun washing in some floaty, misty clouds in between the mountains. This was a stage I was quite apprehensive about, I thought managing such light wispy strokes would be almost impossible. I found out there’s a simple technique though, you wet the paper all over first and then load your brush with graded ink that’s pale at the back and darker at the tip. Then you can use your brush on it’s side to achieve the effect of the mountain fading into the mist.
Having put this in place we were able to start adding colour to the rocks with a first wash of Burnt Sienna and Mineral Green. Our homework is to darken the green by adding another wash, this time Mineral Blue, then we’ll be ready for an Indigo wash to create some contrast followed by a last run over the details to bring them out a bit more – all the washes tend to soften them, especially as the green and blue are slightly opaque.
My apologies that the picture today is a bit difficult to see, I almost forgot to photograph it before it got dark and we’re now working with sizes that are too large to scan in. The colours aren’t quite as bright as in real life, and the paper was on a brown table which is showing through because it’s so thin.