It's been a looonnnggg time!! Some quick little paintings

[adigal]

Hi all,
I have not painted in WC for a long time - I was getting frustrated, so I worked with pastels for a while, and then didn't paint at all for about 5 months. I did some little quick paintings, and need some advice:
- how do you get trees to look more like trees?? Is there a good tutorial anywhere? I was looking around for one, but couldn't find any
- what the heck happened to my wet-on-wet tree?? It doesn't even begin to resemble a tree!! This is almost bad enough to send me running back to pastels, where at least I can make things almost look like things, but I LOVE the process of watercolors!! Help?? Is there enough help out there??
Nancy

[Yorky]

Hi Nancy, good to see you.

Your second picture is very good, maybe a little darker shadow on the trunk is all.

Have you checked out the Watercolor Demos, I am sure there are several dealing with trees.

Doug

[M.L. Schaefer]

Hello, lovely to meet you! Seems your paper is way to wet for doing any detail work. You can do a wet in wet sky, reserve your tree area, and wait till it dries or wait until it is BARELY moist, THEN paint some trees...I think that will solve a lot of your frustration! As far as trees are concerned, this website can give you a good idea of how to paint evergreens and firs (with or without snow)...I'm trying to recall if there is a segment for decidious? Anyway, here tis: http://susieshort.net/watercolor-tips.html Also, here is my very most favorite website when I was starting out: http://www.watercolorpaintingandprojects.com/

So, please don't give up on watercolor! I used pastels, mainly oil some soft, but, alas, was unable to paint with them any longer and I found watercolor...I am so HAPPY I did! Plus, its a whole lot healthier, no wearing masks, no protecting your skin from pastel dust contamination....no heavy duty air cleaning devices....Hey, just a little bit of practice...and did you know you can use pastel with watercolor? In fact, "setting" pastels with water is a much used way of adding density to the pastels before layering on dry color!

Practice and Patience.... I work on the first, lack on the second, but I wouldn't give up watercolor for any other medium! I may dapple in other mediums but never desert!

Margarete

[CharM]

Marvin Chew wrote an article here on WC, Painting Trees and Foliage in Watercolour... it's excellent.

Rod Webb wrote an article here on WC, Watercolor Painting, May Way!: Trees... it's a good resource.

This Foliage Tutorial, a Class led by Shelly Prior, is really a lot of fun and filled with a lot of information and tips.

That should get you started! Keep doing what you're doing... these studies are more than worthwhile... and welcome back!

[virgil carter]

Nancy, welcome back. Your color selection, shapes and saturation are all wonderful. I think the challenge may be understanding and managing the water-paint ratio.

You have the foliage shapes down pat.

Why don't you look for some tutorials and/or videos on water-paint ratios and how to plan and manage them?

Isn't watercolor great? Just when one thinks one understands it, there's something else that rises to the fore! Keep painting!

Sling paint!
Virgil

[adigal]

Thank you all, old and new friends. I will be busy checking out the tutorials you all suggested,
Best,
Nancy

[pjartwc]

I'm going away from what others have said and talk about color. The 2nd painting is perfect in color and value. In the 1st painting, the aqua and lavender in the foreground do nothing for the painting. If cropped, you would have a good painting. In the 3rd painting, the blue kills it. Remove some of the blue and add some dark green wet-on-wet to get more of the look of your 2nd painting. All in all, you've handled the wet-on-wet quite nicely.

[retiretopaint]

You might try "YouTube" and browse WATERCOLOR - there are numerous demos of a variety of lengths.

[MtLookout]

In my opinion, wet on wet is a very limited technique for indicting trees. It has to be controlled for specific applications. For the most part, wet on wet trees don't blend well with most landscape styles. As Virgil alluded to, it requires an understanding of water paint ratio to match the overall style of your painting. Zoltan Szabo used to do some very interesting wet on wet trees in his landscapes. Of course, it made sense with his very softly blended landscapes.

I think that trees are best rendered with a series of wash layers or wet on dry blending of colors. Virgil also does some wonderful wet on dry color mixes.

Tom