Old Bicycle Watercolor Painting - 15 x 20 inches
I have continue with my 15 x 20 watercolor painting on an old bicycle. I have started this the night before and have continued with the painting of the subject on the horizontal support and cross bar. It takes a fair amount of time to do this painting as there are lots of blacks on the subject and mixing it in various shades of watercolor black is a challenge. I have used different ratios of mixes of French Ultramarine Blue, Alizarin Crimson and Windsor Green to get the blacks. Because there are so many blacks in this painting, I wanted a variety of blacks so that it is not just one shades of black which tends to be boring. I also do the blacks in about seven layers of watercolor wash. Each one is applied after the previous one has been completely dried. It is lots of fun doing this watercolor as it progress and take shape.
hello,
I love the subject matter but have basic watercolor question. Don’t you normaly start from light to dark?
That is a good question. I cannot speak for anyone else but I usually start with the subject matter and from light to dark. From left to right and from top to bottom if possible. That is the normal way I do my watercolor painting. For example, within the bicycle headlight, I do the highlight first and continue to the dark areas. I like to establish the range of light to dark in my painting and try to have every other tone fall in between those two. I like my painting to have as wide a tonal range as possible so I usually find areas in my painting with the white of the paper and try my best to put in the deepest blacks. Thanks Bill for the comment. Peter