Tag: plein air paintings

Sometimes plein air watercolor painting problems seem tougher than at others due to non-ideal conditions, if you are on holidays and are there to paint then you just have to try and make the best of your environment. I recently spent 4 days painting at a little New South Wales town called Glen Davis. The daytime temperatures got up to around 99 degrees (37 degrees Celsius), the wind was also quite strong. These conditions, in addition to annoying visits from flies and biting insects made plein air painting with my watercolors quite a challenge.

Glen Davis is situated in the Capertee Valley, from which the Capertee River flows. The valley forms a canyon that is the widest in the world (larger than the Grand Canyon). Glen Davis is located north of Lithgow, New South Wales, off the road to Mudgee.

The town and its surrounds are an artist’s paradise with magnificent views all around.

Plein air watercolor painting problems and solutions

My strategy was to try and get some painting done very early each day, while the temperature was still quite pleasant, even fresh for a little while, before it got too hot. So I would grab a quick cup of coffee and head off to do a painting before breakfast. With the cooler weather my main concerns were the slow drying time of my paper and the rapidly changing light. I did one half sheet watercolor painting and 9 quarter sheet over the four days.

A common mistake plein air watercolor artists make is to try and continue working on top of a damp under painting. It is critical to make sure your under painting is totally dry before you start working on your second wash. To speed up the drying I placed my painting in my car and used its air-conditioning system to help dry it.

Other problems to overcome early in the day was the rapidly changing light, and atmospheric effects. One painting I did which managed to capture the last of the early morning mist required me to keep in mind just what the mist looked like when I first started to paint as it was long gone by the time I had finished my painting.

In another painting, with strong light and shadow shapes on the cliff faces I painted the shadow shapes at the same time I painted the sky, with a light version of the sky color. This allowed me to see just where the stronger shadows should go when I was ready to paint them. These shadows too had moved on by the time I was finishing the cliff face but having them recorded with the light sky color meant I had no problem.

Sometimes too, if I had my easel face on to the subject I was painting, it meant that the sun would be directly on my watercolor painting surface. This makes your work dry even faster, plus makes it harder to judge tones – to say nothing of it being hard on your eyes. This is where an umbrella is very useful but if you don’t have a suitable one then turn your easel around so that your board shades your work. You would then look at the subject and then look back down at your work and paint the next section.

Getting one painting done before breakfast usually meant I had at least one good painting for the day which made the rest of my efforts a lot more pleasurable.

Later in the day the problem was the reverse with my work drying too fast! Painting in the heat of the day requires a different technique.

As the heat and wind rose, I either stayed back at our camp or made some adjustments to my equipment and procedure to allow me to continue to paint.

I have a light umbrella which I use to shade my painting surface in those situations where there is no natural shade.

Also I would give my watercolor paper a light spray before starting my under painting. This spray of water was just to get the temperature of the paper down to give me a little more time before my wash would dry.

I also kept spraying my painted surface lightly with water to keep the shine on the paper as needed.

However despite this you will still find your watercolor washes will still dry very quickly. This is part of the plein air challenge. I use large brushes, e.g. a 24 round, for the initial under painting, after I have mixed much more paint than I needed. If you don’t mix enough you will run out part way through a passage and risk muddying up your watercolor wash as you try to mix more paint while your painting is rapidly drying.

Once the underpainting stage is done you can work in smaller areas with smaller brushes making the effect of the heat less important. Remember to still mix more paint than you need however. It is surprising just how fast your watercolor paint will dry in hot and windy conditions.

If you don’t want to mix lots of paint then just paint smaller and leave the bigger paintings till your skill and speed of painting improves.

Despite the heat one morning it was rain that was the problem. In this case there is nothing you can do but take you painting and hop into your car. Never try to continue with a watercolor painting in the rain. It doesn’t work!

Here are the watercolor paintings I produced over the four days:

Recently I went plein air painting with my friends. We have a regular plein air day every Thursday. The group sometimes has eight or more people turn up and is a lot of fun. Most of the people who turn up to these plein air days are members of the Nepean Art Society, in Penrith. The location of my painting is about 20 minutes from my home.It is a small farm with a single pond, a few cows, and a mountain background. The scene had lots of information in it. Rather than trying to paint everything I saw I simplified the scene and concentrated on creating depth to my watercolor painting and capturing the reflections.

I started my watercolor painting with a very weak wash of cobalt blue and cadmium orange in the sky. Both water colors are Winsor and Newton artists quality watercolors. I painted this mix of watercolors down to the horizon line.

I then added a mix of  cobalt turquoise mixed with aureolin and some raw umber from the the top of the hill to the distant shore on the pond. I left the pond as white paper for now as it would be painted after the trees and shrubs were put in. I used a similar mixture in the foreground but added some additional raw umber. This added raw umber increased the mixture’s tone and helped bring the foreground to the front. I added some additional splattered paint to break up the foreground to make its shape more interesting. I also left some untouched paper here and there in the foreground to add more life to that part of the watercolor painting.

I left this stage to dry. At this time I was still painting in the shade and I had to place my painting on a post in the sun as it was taking too long to dry. This was coffee break time!

Once the painting was totally dry I was ready to paint the distant hill and the foreground.

The distant hill was painted with the same green I had mixed previously with some french ultramarine added to the mix.

Plein air painting problems

The sun was now full on my watercolor paper and I had to paint much faster with a closer eye on what was happening on my paper. This is what makes plein air painting with watercolors such a challenge. When the atmosphere is cool and you have shade on your artwork you are always waiting for the paper to dry. Impatience at this stage will give you a muddy painting. Then when the sun and heat are on your work you have to speed things up and really keep and eye of how fast everything is drying. But hey, that is part of the fun and challenge of plein air painting with watercolor!

When I painted the distant hill I left some parts of the under painting showing through to represent fields without trees. I also quickly softened parts of the top edge of the hill to give it the feeling of trees. I brought this hill wash down to the horizon line. Using my watercolor brush I painted one or two quick horizontal lines near the bottom of the hill to give the impression of distant fields. While the hills was still wet I dropped in some darker water color to represent some distant trees. These trees were all painted with a wet on wet watercolor technique which produces soft edges.

I continued with the foreground trees while the distant hill was still a little wet. This acted as an under painting for the foreground trees. I let this stage dry fully. While this was drying I went around and chatted to my friends and to see how their work was progressing. Most were painting with oil paints so I was not causing them any anxiety by interrupting their work. I usually leave the watercolorists alone if they are painting as they need a little more concentration.

My next step was to paint the foreground trees with various mixtures of green. I made sure to drop darker tones into the shaded parts of my painting. I also ensured I did not totally block out the distant fields and hills. This helped create the feeling of depth to my painting.

I was now ready to paint the water and the reflections. The water was painted first with a mix of cobalt blue and a tiny bit of burnt sienna. While the water was still wet I dropped in the tree colors from the tree mixture I had saved. Notice how I have left parts of the water area as white paper to act as highlights.

After the watercolor paint in the pond area was fully dried I finished my painting off with the three cows and some fence posts. All in all this plein air painting took me about one and a half hours. Which is pretty typical for one of my plein air paintings. You can see the finished watercolor painting below. I was happy with the result.