Outdoor Painting in
Watercolor
By Larry Cannon
Watercolor,
as an outdoor medium, has a long and distinguished history
extending from before J.M.W. Turner and the great British
painters of the 19th century to the California Impressionists
and to today’s excellent outdoor watercolorists.
Once considered primarily as a means to create composition
and color studies for later oil paintings, watercolor
has emerged since Turner’s time as a medium in its
own right for finished outdoor paintings.
While watercolor does have some logistical advantages
over other mediums, it presents some special challenges.
The weather of the day can greatly affect the painting
process – causing the paper to stay wet for what
seems like forever to the other extreme of drying too
fast to allow the proper adjustment of edges. Patience
is a must.
Since watercolor involves painting from light to dark,
the painting can seem rather insipid for most of the process,
and the temptation to go for the satisfaction of darker
values too soon needs some degree of self-control. The
charm of watercolor is the luminosity of transparent pigments
laid one over the other. I’ve found that this transparency
lends itself to multiple thin transparent washes to increase
color unity and enhance that special afternoon golden
glow of the Northern California landscape.
My approach is a traditional one of layering washes over
a careful drawing with some highlights preserved with
masking fluid. I start with a very free wash of transparent
primary colors to establish the overall color tone and
pattern for the painting. As I work through the halftones
and darks, I rarely use more than two or three additional
pigments in order to maintain an overall color unity to
the work.
My
advice for outdoor watercolor:
- Work out the composition carefully before applying
any paint
- Know where you want your highlights and how they
will lead the viewer to the focal point
- Limit the number of pigments used
- Establish the sky mood and shadow shapes early
- Place one small dark early to establish your tonal
range
- Use final washes to unify the color tone and pull
out the painting’s focal point
Materials used:
- Winsor & Newton watercolors
- Kolinsky Sable Round brushes – # 4 through
#16
- Arches 300 # cold press or rough paper - stretched
- EasyL easel and tripod
