Six changes to my landscape-painting process

I finished my last landscape painting in 2021. While I was busy with life over the past four years, I used the pause in painting to think about how I could change my overall process to come back to watercolor with a fresh start. 

Last fall, I started reading The Complete Watercolorist’s Essential Notebook by Gordon MacKenzie. This book helped me learn so much about the watercolor medium. It influenced the choices I made below.

I attempted to stretch my watercolor paper.

Pro: My paper did not warp at all during large washes!
Con: Somehow I created a curved underside to my painting surface.

After soaking my paper (Saunders Waterford 140lb cold press) and adhering it to masonite board, I placed hand-weights on the edges as it dried to hold it down flat. The paper continually shrank up even further, which bent my masonite board backing even though the painting itself was flat, making it a bit challenging to paint at my art desk while the board slipped around. I stuffed rags underneath or used the arms of my swivel chair to balance it, which did work out okay. Do I need to keep weights on my board every day when I’m not painting? Should I build a frame underneath the board to help reinforce the masonite? Clearly I need to do some more research here.

I used a controlled wet-on-wet technique to paint large areas in small batches.

I found that paying close attention to the water level on my paper allowed me to add the right amount of pigment at the right time, with time to spare for lifting pigment to create the small cirrocumulus clouds. I also paid attention to where my wet edges were, so I could make sure colors faded instead of creating a harsh edge. After that area would dry, I could start the next wet-on-wet area right beside it for a seamless effect.

I experimented with tape and a new masking fluid.

I wanted to add detail to my tree bark rather than having almost-black trees like my reference photo. One of the fun parts of painting is changing things a bit from the reference photo to make the scene more dynamic. 

I used Schminke’s Liquid Frisket in white (which dried clear) and a mapping pen to mask off a border for my trees and for the larger branches. Having these areas blocked off helped me keep an eye on my overall composition. In the past, I used other types of masking fluid that was hard to clean up and would dry more rigidly which made for a challenging removal from the paper. I also don’t know if this is just me, but the other products smelled horrible. The Liquid Frisket is easy to remove, clean up, lacks offensive smell, and doesn’t seem to dry out as quickly in the jar. 

I painted the hillsides wet-on-wet so I attempted to remove margin for error. I masked off the lake from my hillsides with cheap, thin, brown packing tape. This worked pretty well for the mask - there was a little bleed through due to the textured nature of my paper, but I was able to scratch that up using a utility knife. 

I painted with large brushes and mixed pigments on a large ceramic palette.

In past works, I have had a habit of sticking to brushes size 6 or smaller. This has led to a very detailed style of work. In an attempt to change that, I tried using larger brushes wherever possible (sky, trees, lake water) in hopes of creating more areas where the eyes can rest without detail. I’m not sure if I succeeded at that completely, but I think this painting is a step in the right direction. I still used a size 2 brush for the tree bark, leaves, waves in the lake, and smaller branches. 

I also loved using a larger ceramic palette. This was the first time I added paint out of the tube directly onto the palette to make sure I had plenty to work with, instead of working out of my half-pan metal palette and smaller ceramic palettes with wells. I really liked the two large mixing spaces where I was able to keep warm and cool mixes separate. 

I used a limited color palette.

I only used four colors in this entire painting!

1. 1. English Yellow (Utrecht)
   2. Indian Red (Utrecht)
   3. Prussian Blue (Utrecht)
   4. Indanthrone Blue (Daniel Smith)
      

I love the color harmony this achieved. I got super familiar with how much of each pigment would create different variations in color. I learned that Indian Red is technically an unsaturated color. It’s interesting to see how it desaturates all of the colors it’s added to and creates a muted, earthy effect. In washes, it can also granulate when mixed with the Prussian Blue, which created a nice effect for cloud shadow, but I couldn’t quite get it to make a solid purple/warm blue for the sky. As much as I wanted to stick with a color triad, I added Indanthrone Blue in the sky for some extra warmth.

I dedicated time to my art every single day.

This is potentially the largest leap forward that I made... I have been waking up an hour earlier each morning and dedicating that time to my art. Before, my painting time was condensed into a few hours here and there at night if I wasn’t too tired from my day job, or squeezed into a small chunk of time on a weekend.

I spent several days sketching or creating small sample cards where I practiced layering, water blending, or clouds - any sort of area I thought I might need to test out before the final painting. I found that I became more familiar with my tools and more relaxed with the whole process overall, knowing that I would have the next day to continue whatever I was working on.

Part my love of painting is the process of creative problem solving and exploration. I love the learning and experimentation. I hope that sharing my notes have given you some ideas that you can apply to your own paintings or experiences. 

---

If you’re interested in any of the supplies I listed above, check out https://dickblick.com, https://utrecht.com or your local art supply shop if you’re lucky enough to have one!

My new painting, Cheat Lake Backwaters Winter Sunset, will be available soon along with prints in various sizes.