Final Watercolor Landscape

Purpose: 

To experiment, explore, and learn a variety of watercolor painting techniques;

To use knowledge of landscape strategies to create a final watercolor landscape;

menemsha sunset, 10/29/24,  watercolor

At first, I was very intimidated by doing landscape art, but the strategies of using horizon lines and vanishing points simplified the exercise and helped me a lot. Throughout this exercise, I learned a number of things, and most memorably the importance of painting in order from background to foreground. It is important to paint the background before the foreground because it helps make the painting look more realistic, because in real life the foreground sits in front of the background and would appear more detailed.  I also learned how to layer, which I didn’t think was possible when using watercolor paint. The way you layer is by applying a coat of paint in the area, then letting it FULLY dry, and then adding another coat of paint. Layering is used to make areas darker and add more detail. Another technique I learned was using white space and not painting areas on purpose. This technique kind of relates to layering, but it sticks out to me. 

I used the wet-on-wet technique quite a lot, especially when making my sky and ocean components of my painting. I also attempted to use the dry-brush-with-pigment technique to add texture to my ocean, but it didn’t work out. 

I had a momentary issue with colors mixing together to create unwanted colors (sky turned green) but that was on my practice painting, and on my final I just let the gray of the sky dry longer before adding yellow and pink. Another challenge I had was painting things out of order. I didn’t really realize how much I needed to paint foreground to background until I was fairly far through my painting process, but once I learned, I was able to correct and continue making my painting the right way.