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Basic Techniques for Gloveland Morning Series

My philosophy about painting is that it must include three important elements. *First is the spirit*. A painting has a spirit when it is done with an intention or goals and it echos a message to the viewer. That very purpose of the painting is the beginning of the spirit of the painting. The choice of subject or expression is only a mean to achieve what the viewer's experience. The goal of my California Landscape series of paintings is to capture a sense of calmness, relaxation and decompression. The painting is successful when it conveys the same anti-stress feeling to the viewer.
	The Gloveland Mornings series was inspired by my stay in the vacation home of my dear friend Ann Knapp. The view on the balcony is an endless miles of pine trees. The trees are lighted from behind by the sun rise which changes to a golden color. Then the color of the sky changes daily depending on the climate. The trees are ordinary just like any day. But with the sun rise, the micro-climate makes the scenary spectacular and extraordinary. The series conveys the quiet early morning feeling when the pine trees are in golden color and the day of vacation is not yet started.
The *second element is the composition*. This is where the design and placement of subject matter come in. It is the ability to exercise the so called artistics license. Subject matter may not be as perfectly located, and the lighting as constant as you may want them to be. The most important aspect of the subject is focused while the unimportant ones are simplified out. Making a sketch or outline of the painting will help you study the subject and gives your control over what the final composition should be.
For the Gloveland Morning paintings, I make a quick pencil sketch. It gives me an opportunity to design the composition that consists of the distant mountain, the mid-ground and the foreground. The mid-ground, where the focus is, has a variety of sizes of trees. I also make a note about what color I will use for the various parts of the painting. The choice of color can greatly change the feeling of the painting. The red sky in the "Red and Foggy" painting is very different as you can see.
The distant mountain has a gentle slop and relatively flat geometry which gives a sense of calmness. The small shape of the distance tree will give a sense of a wide open space.
The *last element which is equally important in a painting is the execution*. There are many ways to paint a watercolor painting. Either start with a precise outline for highly controlled execution, or a rough and simpified outline for a loose and spontaneous splash of color. The application of color can be based on different techniques. One can start with the lightest value and gradually move toward the darkest value, or go to the darkest value and then fill in with the medium tones. It is also equally useful to paint the value using monotone color first and then apply transparent color to achieve the final color. The choice of technique will bring out the spirit of the painting with different effects.

In this Groveland Morning painting, I did a rough and light outline of the trees, and then a quick wash of the distance, mid-ground and foreground trees. Without any details, I completed the under-painting. It has the sky, the golden back light of the pine trees, shapes of the trees in the background, and the darker value for the trees in the foreground. This forms the entire foundation for the subsequent layers of glazing. Notice that the distant mountain is done using a cool cerulean blue mixed some gap green to suggest the furthest distance. The foreground has awarmer color such as red which suggests the closest distance and darker value to anchor the painting.

After this layer is dried, I use sap green and other colors of darker value to sketch in the details for the trees. The distant trees are practically small vertical strokes. The trees behind the main trees have a more defined shape but not do not have a lot of details. To suggest the fog in the morning. I clean my brush and dab back into the foot of the trees to absorbe some of the pigment.
The main trees are basically calligraphy strokes that I learned from my early training in Chinese water-ink painting. It is one free-hand continuous stroke starting from the tip of the tree to the bottom while developing all the branches using the color sap green. By leaving some of the yellow part of the first layer out,
	I create the golden back light of the tree and at the same time, the transparent green color glaze over the yellow resulting in a lighter green color for the tips of the tree. A few more repetitions of this technique completes the lower part of the tree using blue or a mix of another darker color. The foreground on the other hand is very spontaneously done with a large brush stroke and some scrapping to suggest the branches of the closer trees. It simply gives an impression of the the subject but avoids distraction from the main focus of the mid-ground trees.
Painting the mid-ground trees one by one, the entire paper is covered. Stand back and look from time to time to decide if the objective of the painting is achieved and make any necessary final touches.

A list of Materials used for this painting: Color (Da Vinci, Winsor & Newton, Daler-Rowney, etc.) Cerulean Blue Cadmium Yellow Light Sap Green Ultramarine Blue Red Rose Deep Yellow Ochre (optional) Burnt Orange (optional) Brushes Two-inch Flat for first layer of wash One-inch Flat for foreground Half-inch Flat for tree in mid-ground No.4 Round for fine lines Sketching Pencil V 3B, HB Sketch book Paper Arches 140lb or 300lb cold press
	To find out more about demonstration of my watercolor painting, please contact me at Dixon@laugallery.com or click on Contact in www.LauGallery.com Text and Photography are copyrighted material and reproduction for distribution is prohibited without prior agreement.

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