Work In Progress: Glade Creek Grist Mill, Update 11

Work In Progress: Glade Creek Grist Mill, Update 11

            Last week I discussed detail in my paintings and put forward an argument for why detail needs to be saved for the most important areas. Detail in the main subject is important because it keeps focus in that area. Detail elsewhere can be distracting. That argument makes sense – except I have a great deal of trouble working under that premise. When I looked at the painting up to the point I had attained I felt there was something wrong, and that probably I had added too much detail, but then it occurred to me that there wasn’t enough detail. Not enough detail? That goes against everything I had convinced myself of. I added a bit more detail to the deciduous tree and more to the snow laden evergreen shrubs on the creek bank. That seemed to help! At the same time I looked through paintings by other artists to see how they handled details. An artist who I truly admire is Carol Evans. She lives and paints watercolor scenes on the pacific northwest coast. As I looked through her paintings, I became aware that the ones that really caught my attention, the ones that I was most impressed with, were the ones that had a great deal of detail everywhere. Although my paintings have not yet reached the impressive richness and complexity of hers, the style of our best paintings is similar – emphasis on detail. That seems to be when I’m happiest with my work. Loose brushwork has a place in my repertoire – maybe pen and ink and watercolor – but not in my watercolor or colored pencil. I’ve learned something about myself over the past couple of weeks.

            After adding more branches to the deciduous tree, I put more detail into the evergreen shrubs (probably rhododendrons) on the creek bank. I broke up the snow masses some by adding more foliage. The shrubs also needed to be a bit darker, so I used a mix of French ultramarine and burnt sienna to darken the shadows. To highlight leaves here and there I used a mix of yellow ochre, new gamboge and hookers green.

I lightly penciled in the frozen waterfall. Then I added very light washes of new gamboge and permanent rose up on top of the waterfall next. All the detail on the waterfall was done with a combination of winsor blue and paynes gray. Most of the work was done with winsor blue but paynes gray was layered on to produce darker shadows. I did not mix the two colors but layered them separately. It took many layers to get the darkest values.

By next week I should have the waterfall completed over to the trees on the right and I’ll be starting on the snow and ice area below the waterfall.