Building Dramatic Watercolors with the Middle Values David Rankin Watercolors
The real power of transparent watercolor is in the middle values.
I am a classic Transparent Watercolor painter.
Using Transparent Watercolor... I very seldom ever use opaque paints. Because I don't use opaque white pigment... I need to use the white of the paper itself. And in order to do this effectively I must first study a potential painting subject... before I start to paint it.
Over the years I have evolved a very effective working procedure that I use to help me understand the various color values in any subject.
I refer to this as my Observation & Evaluation Procedure.
The very first thing I look for are the Darkest Darks. The second thing I observe & evaluate... are those features of the subject that will eventually become the Whitest... Lightest... Brightest parts in the painting.
Once I have figured out where the Darkest Darks are going to go... and then... where the Whitest, Lightest, Brightest features will be... I make note that everything else in the painting will actually be painted with Middle Value colors.
Why is this so important?
The reason I work this way is because I have to actually paint around all of those... Whitest... Lightest... Brightest features... so that I don't make a mistake and simply paint right over them in the beginning.
To show you what I mean... I've assembled a painting here in precise stages that will help you to understand how a subject like this is created.
If you notice in the image of the completed painting... there is no white left in the painting... except for that cluster of White Birch trees in the distant forest. These ruts... that I painted around in the very first brushwork... were eventually painted over with a thin glaze of blue gray later in the process.
In this next stage I started the sky wash at the top edge and worked the sky downwards to the treeline. Working quickly... I then brushed the warm color of the fall leaves up into the bottom edge of the sky wash... allowing it to merge into the still wet sky. This merging of wet brushwork...created a nice soft edge of fall leaves against the sky. I was careful to paint around the distant Birch Trees... cutting out their shapes... and leaving them clean white paper.
But at the same time... the hard part of this was using the right side of that sky area to define the bare tree branches in these foreground trees. The edges that meet the sky all had to be done at the same time in order to create a fairly even wash yet cut out clean white areas in the tree. Once the large area to the left was done... I could slow down a bit and finish off the other tree branches and trunks... leaving them clean white paper.
This is precisely the kind of subject where many watercolor painters today... would spend a lot of time brushing Frisket into these areas. I however seldom use Frisket... and recommend artists use good brushwork skills instead.
Here's why I painted around these delicate tree branches.
And now... the only white left in the painting are these trees... since I darkened this whole foreground with a blue gray wash putting it into shadow... and increasing the contrast with these background trees.
Now that I've gotten this far... I can begin to added the darker foreground elements of the subject. Notice how effective this darker brushwork is when painted right over those initial negative shapes I cut out of the sky wash and then filled with warm yellowish brushwork. The darker brushwork added on top... now creates an instant illusion of depth in the trees. And the darker pine trees towards the back... makes those Birch Trees look even further back in the distance.
I also added some darker grasses in this foreground area.
But then... in order to create a stronger visual impact I had to increase the contrasts so that the light in those distant trees popped!
So I ran a 3rd wash of blue gray over the entire shadow area... and then developed true Darkest Dark brushwork in these foreground trees. Note however... that I was careful to not paint over all of that warm yellow color in the trees. That's what creates depth in the trees and adds to the charm of the last light of day illuminating parts of these trees.
This scene was actually a cold fall day... a few days after our first snow fall. And those ruts in the trail were actually snowy ice that had not melted away.
You can see in the way this painting was created that it is primarily middle values... punctuated with these darker darks at the end. The satisfaction with the visual impact of the painting... and the illusion of depth... is created primarily with a careful assembly of these middle-value stages... punctuated by the addition of the Darkest Darks at the end.