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;

In the beginning, I knew I wanted to do something with lots of shades of purple and pink, and blue because I love those colors. I picked my picture because I liked the water and trees, and the colors. Next, I sketched out my painting on watercolor paper. I only did a little bit because I didn’t want it to intrude on my process. Next, I started mixing my paints and watercolors because I wanted a variety of shades and values. Once I started getting the paint on the paper, I knew there was no going back. I started with the washes, and I wanted to get the colors down so that I knew what it looked like to go from there. Then, I started getting down darker colors using some of the watercolor techniques. I lastly went in with the details, which I had to be careful of. This was an issue in my first painting because I went a little overboard in making the ripples in the water. In my second painting, I made them all too uniform and alike, so I had to use the first painting, which was more diverse in the technique and look of the water. I went in with the branches on the trees with a little brush, and make the boat in the end because of all the dark values it had. Overall, it was a very long process, but I needed all of the steps because, without them, I would not have been able to receive the product that I ended up with. 

Another thing that I learned as a result of this unit is that blending colors is the only way you are going to receive depth and value. For example, when I started and did my first watercolor landscape with the techniques, I used maybe two mixed colors. It really did not look realistic or artistic at all. By the time that I got to my final watercolor, I had 12-15 colors pre-mixed, ready to go because I knew I needed to get more values and shades into the painting. I still think I could have gone a little bit farther and a few more colors to blend a few of them into each other more, especially in the sky, but that might have also been an issue of too little water when painting. Overall, I definitely learned that when watercolor painting, it is very important to have many colors and shades, even when the color palette is limited. 

One thing that I noticed was that I really didn’t experiment too much with my two different paintings. I should have really tried something different on each one, especially because my first watercolor landscape did not turn out how I wanted it to at all, so I didn’t have the chance to test out too many of the techniques that I wanted to use in my final. Next time, I would want to definitely branch out on the second painting, because in the end, I would have had more of a choice when it came time to pick between the two, instead of looking at the little mistakes that separated my paintings. In the end, I think that I should definitely experiment with different techniques next time, and I have learned much from this experience.