Wednesday, April 14, 2010

underpaintings:warm and loose

6x8 pastel and watercolor on Twinrocker all purpose
below, underpainting
Greeen..greeeeeen and more greeeeeeeen!!! The world has turned green, baby green. Personally, I find very green landscapes unappealing.  I forced myself to remember that landscapes have a warm bias, even when a cool, overcast, early morning sunrise lights new Spring foliage. You need to find the warm to make it look alive.
So this brings us to underpainting. When creating an underpainting you need to look at the skeleton colors. What is underneath? Paint that; then look at what coats that.  Most important: remember, there are NO MISTAKES in an underpainting, ONLY POSSIBILITIES.
In this painting I kept more orange in the landscape than was there. That was my choice. Remember you always have permission to select the color YOU want. You are not a slave to the landscape.
I did two this morning and will post the other one tomorrow. I liked that one better.

8 comments:

Donna T said...

No mistakes?! There's hope for me yet! You sure have a loose, free way with your underpaintings and I agree, green must be controlled! I try to think of it as an accent, something to be added at the very end - otherwise it takes over the whole painting!

SamArtDog said...

Before I even scrolled up, the first thing I saw was that beautiful bloom you got when you put water on the Twinrocker. A great example of "only possibilities". From then on, you owned this. No, you are not a slave to the landscape; you ARE the landscape!

Double "D" said...

Yaaaaaaaaaaay! Woo Hoo!

Watercolor underpainting. Looks fabulous B!
I know I'm partial to watercolor but it's just great to see. You just have to except the fact that during the time I've been watching your blog, you've created some of the most beautiful watercolors I've seen.
You always amaze me.
PB.

loriann signori said...

Hi Donna!!
There's always hope. You are right about green..it drives me crazy yet it can be compelling...used correctly.

Hi Sam!
I AM the landscape...wow that's crazy! Thanks for all your positive vibes.

Hi PB...They're BAAACCCKKKKK!
Let's see what happens. I await my package with baited breath.

Nika said...

What a riot! I can't believe how intense the watercolor underpainting looks, there's nothing wishy-washy about it. Do you think Twinrocker makes watercolor look more "dense"? It's not a bad quality, mind you.
I have a slight aversion to all-green landscape too:)

Jala Pfaff said...

Wow, gorgeous. I've always loved your watercolor underpaintings...I even love them as is.

loriann signori said...

Hi Nika, I am not quite sure what you mean by dense... please explain. It definitely is intense.

Hi Jala..thank you.

Nika said...

"Dense" as in very pigment-saturated, not transparent. I do like that quality.