"Fishing the Housatonic"
A Watercolor Demonstration by our
Fabulous Instructor, Artist and Friend,
Robert Mesrop
Robert has been teaching Watercolor Classes at the Creative Arts Center for many years. His students enjoy his demonstration style of teaching where he paints and problem solves showcasing techniques and good practices each class.
1- I took this photo while fishing on the Housatonic River. The light on the tree was astounding. Could I capture it on paper? The composition was good, including the fly fisherman.
2- On a 15x22 sheet of Arche's cold press paper stretched on a board, I dampened the top half and dropped in high value lemon yellow, cad yellow light and manganese blue tilting the board to let move where ever. I added some Paynes grey for dark accents. Also some vertical shapes below.
3- When all was dry, I went at the background with Prussian blue, Paynes grey and the yellows defining the shape of the sun lit tree. I ignored the figure.
(I use no tube greens preferring to mix them all from blues, yellows and orange.)
I left the white paper for the stream surface.
4- When that dried, I used a bit of Mr. Clean eraser to swipe a spot for the figure. With a large mop brush, I quickly painted the far stream bank and foreground sand bars and rock shapes with a greyish purple, (a nice compliment to the yellow green) being careful to avoid the figure. While damp, I added some darks for boulders and squeezed out some highlights.
5- Next came some shadows and flesh tones on the figure to define him a little. Some dark accents here and there for contrast and texture and scratching some sparkle in the water and I was almost done.
6- Finally came the fly line floating in the air. I had one shot at that. With a saber liner & opaque white with a touch of burnt sienna, luckily a got it the first try "Fishing the Housatonic" This the second painting I've done around that spot.
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