Watercolor painting - sunset mountains

 Sunset over the mountains in Salzkammergut

Hi there! This week, I've been trying out a watercolor paper that I had bought several weeks ago... The Winsor&Newton 100% cotton watercolor paper. I'll tell you more about the paper in just a short while, and also describe the process of painting a wonderful sunset scenery over the mountains in Salzkammergut :)

Inspiration strikes!

I was just lazily browsing through my photographs... 

Side note, I have a folder with inspiration photographs, which are basically photographs from holidays, or every day life that I think could make nice paintings, or drawings. Whenever I'm in the mood to paint, but I don't know exactly what I want to paint - or even when I just search some inspiration, or want to have a short practice, or want to find back some creative juice - I go to this folder!

So, like I said, I was browsing through this folder, and I just found back this beautiful photograph taken last year in Salzkammergut. I was very inspired by the colors, the composition... Basically everyhting! 

Reference photo. Love the sky and the composition!

Finding the right paper...

I've heard it say that paper plays a huge part when doing watercolors. I only used acid-free paper, that should help my paintngs last more. But, as I was following artists on Youtube, a lot of them were talking about "100 % cotton paper"... So last time I went to the art shop, I decided to look out for some of this paper. I decided to buy the Winsor&Newton 100 % cotton watercolor paper, which was not the most expensive out there. I am quite familiar with the brand and I thought it would be a nice starting point.

However, I found myself in the same situation as when I first bought some expensive Arches paper (which is actually also 100 % cotton I think. But I've only used it once): I was afraid to use the paper! I felt like it was some special paper, that needed some special art on it, and that I couldn't do one of my dabblings there.

But this week, I felt braver and decided to go all in with this painting! So I grabbed this paper, and started to paint :)

Working in layers

When doing watercolors, I prefer to work in layers. But with the paper I used previously, I felt like I couldn't work in more than 2 or 3 layers, and if I went too crazy with wet techniques, the paint started to lift :/ But all of these issues belong to the past now! With this paper, I was able to work and rework as much as I wanted without having this "overworking" issue of paint lifting and behaving strangely.

I will still present the process by going through three layers, but this time I could really work a lot in each layer, and tweak things easily.

Sorry for some of the photographs: the colors look very red because I started painting with artificial light on the evening, so my camera did not render the colors very well...

The first layer - Setting the colors and working on the values

With my first layer, I like to work wet-on-wet. Meaning that I first put some clean water everywhere, and then throw some colors. I didn't go too crazy here, because I wanted my colors to stay pretty clear (I have a problem of ending up with muddy colors on my patings). 

I also use this first layer to start thinking about my values: where are my darkest darks and my lightest lights. 

I had a lot of fun with the sky, which is actually a part I did not rework at all afterwards

The first layer

The second layer - Darkening the darks

This layer is where I really start putting some more definition, mostly by darkening even more the darks and setting up the shadow areas. I also define more the different lines and grounds: where the forest stops and the meadow starts, how many different layers of trees are there in the forest, etc. Usually, I start this layer, then stops for a while and comes back to it to see what needs to be adjusted. 

The second layer

For this painting, I made a mistake: I did not decide beforehand on my color palette, so I started using some ivory black for darkening some of my colors and working on my shadows... Which was not a good idea! It created those brownish tones that I couldn't get rid of afterwards (once I actually started to think about my color palette).

In the end, I decided to use a mixture of indigo and dioxazine violet for the darkest shadows. For the grass and mountains, I used mostly ultramarine as my shadow color.

The third layer - Final details

The last layer is where I finish working on the areas that still need more definition. It is also where I add more fine details. I also usually work on the foreground during my last layer (which usually means that this last layer is made of several layers). 

For the foreground, I wanted to clearly distinguish the different hills. I decided to use a little bit of the yellow that I had used for the sky (cadmium yellow hue) for the top of the hill, as it was catching a little bit of that glow from the sunset. I darkened a bit more the shadows (the foreground is where you should have the more contrast, more details, and "purer" colors), but I think I could have gone even darker here! 

The final result!

Final thoughts - supplies, colors, and more

I found the process of painting on this paper very enjoyable. I think I need to force myself to work with even more limited colors, as it would create more coherency from the start.

On this painting I've used: cadmium yellow hue and cadmium orange hue for the sky. For the clouds it's a mix of alizarin crimson hue (or rose madder hue, I've used them interchangeably) and ultramarine. 

Then I've used dioxazine violet, indigo and ultramarine for the shadows and dark trees (and ivory black, but let's pretend I didn't). When it needed to be a little more green, I've mixed in a little bit of Hooker green. For the meadow it's a base of sap green, with layers of shadows on top. All of the colors are from my big Winsor&Newton cotman palette.

I've mainly used two brushes for this paintng: a size 12 Cotman round brush and a size 6 DaVinci casaneo round brush.

For more information on my art supplies, you can check this page, where I go through most of my art supplies :)

Hope you've enjoyed reading this post and that it has inspired you to pick up your brushes (or whatever tools you use for your art) and to go for it! And if you're scared to use one of your expensive stuff, maybe this is the right time to try something with it, and it's OK if it doesn't turn out perfect :)