Fishing in the Green

Had this up on my instagram already, but here is a watercolor that was supposed to be a quick practice on some paper leftover from my printmaking and ended up taking a while to get around to finishing. Went at it with very little planning (beyond some general inspiration from Steven Cronin's rough initial washes as seen on youtube--but no, it didn't come out at all like a Cronin piece, lol), and ended up with a lot of bits coming out differently than expected, but overall it was some productive experimentation. I think adding the larger tree was helpful for tying the sky to the middle ground. Not sure I like that I put in the reds, and they ended up being harder to control than I'd wanted (heavily staining, so not something you can just sop up again), but I'd been thinking it would be nice to have some warm highlights.

Done on Strathmore 400 series 12x12, which is good enough for the light washes I'm doing on my print series but I think I would need to go a step up in the future for paintings that I work at as much as I did this one--have some arches to try out finally, so that will probably be next. Daniel Smith extra fine watercolors, which I continue to enjoy working with. In addition to the essentials set I've been using Pthalo Green (YS), Hansa Yellow Deep, and some super duper granulating Jadeite Green and Transparent Red Iron Oxide.

Will put up some process photos on my tumblr, idrawvikings.