Here is the Forest Watercolor nearly complete! It has been a while since I've posted. The work on this painting has been going very slowly because I needed to get the colors on the rocks just so. I prize a watercolor in part for its cleanness and that means that once you alter a light tone from warm to cool, you can never get it back. So I gave a lot of thought (to the point of feeling stuck) as to the color of the large ledge. In the end, there will be hints of peach, cream, lavender, turquoise, and mauve. This is one of the things I love about working large: so many colors! One of the corner stones of my work is in painting a "remembered image". This painting embodies that. It is painted from a photograph from a place I visited over 25 years ago. I didn't have time to make a sketch at the time so I memorized the colors as best I could and recorded my impressions in my journal: jeweled light, being inside the color emerald, dappled shimmery light, and thousands of hues of peaches, mauves, yellows, and aqua on the rocks. What I remember most is the awe I felt at the beauty of this place. I hope I've conveyed it. There is still more to do: over hanging spruce branches, and unifying the shadows, and more dapples.
