Sunset at the Wash

For my exercise, I wanted to experiment with a quinacridone gold wash. Since it is a staining pigment, I decided to pair it with burnt sienna, a granulating pigment. With the idea of a sunset, I added some splashes of alizarin crimson. Streaks of payne’s gray served to ground the image.

I love the mingling of the pigments so far. This image reminds me of a place at Tallgrass Prairie, where rushing water had torn away part of a ridge, exposing roots and strata of soil. I quickly painted in some details to complete the scene.

Later, I searched my photographs for a picture of the wash.

If I were to paint this scene again, I would include the deep shadows where the landform bends away from the viewer.

Painted wet-in-wet and wet-in-dry with a Sumi brush on 140 lb. cold press paper.