Rainy Day

Watercolour on Arches 140 lb. Cold Press Watercolour paper. Original size appx. 9 x 12 inches.

When I ran the poll asking which of my San Diego sketches I should make into a watercolour painting, the overwhelming response was for this one. I did the majority of this painting while I was away at Solomon's Island, Maryland.

Here I was going for something mellow, but not depressing. I used earth tone washes as the foundation for the rest of the piece, making sure my colours didn't get too saturated. After that, I built up layers of more earth colours, dropping in some more saturated pigments when needed (mainly in the flesh tones of the dwarf's face). A lot of blotting was needed to keep all the washes from bleeding together and forming soup on the paper.

I know where I made some mistakes, and I'd go back and fix them if I could, but watercolour is a medium where corrections are difficult once the paint has dried on the paper. I also wish I had Aegerine (PG23) so I could have mixed some richer flesh tints. Overall I'm pretty content with how I did, considering the circumstances. (Maybe later I'll upload a photo of my setup while I was working on this piece.)