Maui Sunset, watercolor

One of our vacation routines that my wife and I have gotten into is finding a spot near the beach each evening to watch the sunset. We end up taking endless photos trying to capture the colors as they constantly change. I don't think we have seen a sunset with a clear sky yet, but the clouds just add to the uniqueness, beauty, and the colors even after the sun has gone below the horizon.

Here is my attempt at capturing the sunset in watercolor. As beautiful as this is, I don't think I have captured the brilliance of the colors yet.

Maui coast in Kihei, watercolor

I've been busy vacationing in Maui...seems like an oxymoron, but the way that I want to see everything there is to see, maybe it's not.  I've slowed down a little this week and had time to get my paints out. This painting was done from a picture that I had taken a couple of days before and now I'm just relaxing on the lanai of the house we are staying at, and painting.

William B Pond, again!

March 4, 2012 - I went back to William B Pond, with my family this time, on a lazy Sunday afternoon (the plus side of having a mild winter).  I found a nice quiet spot on the bank by the “Islands” just down river from the bike trail bridge.  I liked the contrast of nature and architecture in this view.

 I really did not spend a lot of time working on reflection on this painting.  One of the hardest parts of watercolor is having patience enough to wait for areas of the painting to dry enough so it doesn’t bleed when I add another layer. When I first started to add reflection, it bled into the water…not the effect I was going for but let’s make all the reflections blurred to match the first one!

I really played with adding an abstract background. I avoided drawing individual trees but put in clumps of color to imply groups of trees. The bridge was a challenge because I couldn’t figure out the color of concrete. In hind sight, I should have just left it a negative space with a few lines to show the shadows because the black is too dark. This will be a spot to return to later to try that!

The geese were all over the place this day and I almost painted one or two right into the foreground. There’s space in that large area of blue at the bottom.  But I had no idea how to draw geese so I did a little “study of a goose” painting.

After I had packed up my painting supplies (which takes about 2 minutes) my family wanted to walk around and see the other areas of the park.  We headed over to the fishing pier by the pond. There on the pier were two other painters doing the same thing I was doing – bringing their paints outside and painting in nature! I couldn’t believe their set up—chairs, easels on tripods, paints and paintbrushes galore. Although I had been working with a minimalist approach when it came to my supplies, I was quite impressed.  One was working with acrylic, which I had never ventured into trying, even back in college. The other artist, who was working in watercolor, was doing a study of the geese! They were quite inspiring on that day.  After talking to them a bit and watching over their shoulder as they painted (I appreciated this because I know having someone watch as I paint is quite nerve-racking), they told me that they were there because of a Meet-Up group called Plein Aire Painters.  I had never even heard of Meet-Up at this time, and up until this point I was just saying I was painting outside. Now I had a name for what I was doing and apparently there was a group of people in Sacramento that was doing the same thing!  So I was anxious to get home and check it out!

William B Pond

The Islands

My next artist excursion a couple of weeks later, was to William B. Pond at the end of Arden Way along the American River. There is just so much variety here, I could go here many more times and be painting totally different scenes (and you will see later that I have returned frequently). With my backpack of basic watercolor supplies, I hiked over to "The Islands" to be inspired. The first painting I was focused on the reflection again but took a much wetter and blurry approach to it instead of creating a mirror image. It worked out because the viewer gets the sense of moving water instead of the placid water that was at my last spot along the river.  Leaving the white between the bank and the water was emphasizing the shoreline, but is there too much of a gap?  The background is vague and the foreground more detailed, but even with the detail, something was missing. I added more color but what it needed was some shadowing. I tried adding a few shadows but the texture of the trees were still a little flat from my over generalization of the trees. I did get the texture in the water, but I felt my perspective was off a little and my horizon was slanting.

Tree at William B Pond

That gave me an idea, though.  I should be putting some pencil lines down first to keep my horizon level and I can see if my perspective is right before putting paint on the paper!  About a hundred yards down stream, a tree caught my fancy. I laid down a few pencil lines to identify the rivers edge and horizon and started again. Starting with the sky (as I always do) I thought I would try putting some clouds in by lifting paint off. There are three, but two got obscured by the tree. I actually spent quite a bit of time on the background, only to be hidden behind the tree! I did very little reflection work this time ( but I really like how the reflection of the grasses turned out). Interpreting the water movement onto paper was my challenge and then figuring out how to draw all of those cobble rocks on the bank.  So with a lot of "artistic license", I created my own bed of rocks, experimenting with shades of grey.  The tree still came across as flat, even with some shading. Over-generalizing the leaves again is my guess. I will have to work on that. I didn't have the courage to shade it almost black (as in the picture) but as the sun went down and the shadows grew, I knew it was time to pack up. My bottom was numb and I'd have to think about bringing a chair or something next time instead of having to make do with a log or rock.

As you can see, I started taking pictures of the scenes with my phone. Its nice to see the comparison but it makes it easier to be more self-critical. It never turns out exact, but that is not my goal.  My artistic interpretation of what I "see" will always be different than a photo. Knowing this, I think I will continue to take the pictures, but not with the intention of comparing, but to remember how and why I perceived it the way I did.