Watercolor Plus Wednesday

It’s Wednesday, it’s time for a watercolor painting but…….

I had to test out my Christmas gift from Bill.

He’s the kind of guy that loves Christmas gift giving. So this is a BIG box of watercolor pencils. The first thing I had to do was make a swatch.

I spent a lot of time on Christmas afternoon making this swatch. First of all, the pencils weren’t in a usable order, so I had to re-arrange them. There were three steps. 1. Write out the color numbers and names in the same order that they lay in the trays. 2. Scribble each pencil. 3. Liquify each swatch with water to reveal the color.

For my first painting with these pencils, I chose a photograph by Bill of a cardinal.

I love this image, because of the light. He must have taken this one late in the day.

After making a sketch, I laid down an initial watercolor wash. Then I selected about a dozen watercolor pencils which seemed to match all the hues of the bird. I blended these on the sketch then stroked over with water to liquify the pigment. After it dried, I added black details and white highlights with paint.

At that point, it was obvious to me that the background was too pale. I deepened the shades using Payne’s gray and a little burnt sienna.

I’m pretty happy with the result. I think that I will try some floral subjects next.