One of my top painting goals is to be able to paint the Grand Canyon as I see it. I have had this ref photo sitting and marinating in my mind since I took the photo last August when we drove to the Colorado River at the bottom of the canyon, from the west side of the canyon. The colors of this part of the canyon are wonderful and I hope to be able to capture that. This will be an 11x15 study, if I can learn enough from doing this study to do a credible job I will do it for real on a full sheet...gulp!
I just know that I am not getting any closer to realizing my goal by NOT trying to paint it so will dive in and see what happens. My approach to line drawings on watercolor paper is usually a very minimalist approach. I don't like the construction lines to show through the painting so I draw the drawing on the paper with a #2 lead pencil, soak the paper and then staple onto the Homosote board. After this is thoroughly dry, I use a kneaded eraser and erase much of the darkness of the lines. I took this photo before lightening the lines with the eraser. This is far more of a detailed drawing than I usually do, but when trying to paint these canyon walls faithfully I usually get very lost so will try from a more detailed approach this time. That seemed to work better when painting my Canyonlands painting two years ago.
1 comment:
Susan, I had to laugh at your remark about NOT getting any closer to to your goal by NOT trying to paint it!! That surely hits home :) Good for you - learning and more learning are good things and this is the way you're approaching this painting - good luck! Looking forward to it, slowly but steadily going all the way.
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