Painting Update 3: Lake Salvador

I have a short update on the progress of my painting to show.

I wanted to try something a little different and use a palette knife. There’s not much thickness to the paint, which is important to avoid with gouache, but the knife gives a nice texture.

I masked off the poles with tape, and brushed a very thin wash of light blue across the sky area. Next I scraped on a very thin coat of pure titanium white with the knife. I’ll get to the water area next using the same process.

QoR Watercolor Paint Sample Arrived

The order I placed for a sample of the new QoR Watercolor paint arrived in the mail today.

I didn’t need a whole set of paints, so I just ordered a tube of carbon black and a jar of medium. It’s the medium I was the most interested in. That’s a bit of Old Holland flesh ochre red that I mixed with it. It appears to handle just like any other tube of watercolor paint, so no surprises or disappointment. I let the dab of paint dry on the tin, and it re-wet again very easily.

I ordered from Jerry’s Artarama, who’s having a sale for them right now. The price is roughly the same as most other brands of pro quality paints. I also was hoping to try out their Watercolor Ground, but it was currently out of stock.

I’m not aware if Golden plans on offering these in dried cubes for people who like to use watercolors that way. You could dry your own in the meantime.

Painting Update 2: Lake Salvador

I’ve gotten the values roughed in on the new painting using thin coats of yellow ochre and zinc white gouache. I expect that large expanse of water will be the biggest challenge, so I think I’ll do that next and get it out of the way.

Painting Update: Lake Salvador

I managed to get to the painting I had started a few days ago. Yesterday I pulled out a full sheet of illustration board to use as my painting surface, and then prepared to tone the white down with a wash of gouache.

Seeing that I didn’t have enough yellow paint on hand, I mixed up some of my own from some pigment I had, PY 159 (Zirconium Yellow.) I added that to a few drops of of Turner’s Red Violet to give me a sort of yellow ochre tone.

I printed out my photo to scale (18×24″,) and taped the sheets together in order to transfer the image to the surface. I rubbed some charcoal on the back, and drew the outlines that I needed for reference.

I will be painting the shapes with a slightly darker shade, and start to set the values in the next phase of the painting.

Preview: Golden Paint’s QoR Watercolors

I was preparing to make a fresh batch of gouache paint, and looked online to get some supplies, when I stumbled across a new product from Golden Paints called “QoR” (pronounced ‘core’.) It’s a new type of watercolor paint.

QoR Modern Watercolors – Introduction from Golden Artist Colors on Vimeo.

The binder in this paint is Aquazol, which is a brand name for a synthetic resin polymer that has been used in art conservation for decades to repair paint and paint surfaces.

I’ll be placing an online order for this as well as the new watercolor ground primer that Golden has come out with to see how I like it. If anyone has already given them a try, please leave a comment. Aquazol is available online, so if this works out I may try making my own paints with it. That would be more economical.

Here are some additional links for more information:
Just Paint
QoR Watercolor site
Use of Aquazol in conservation techniques

Flyer for Round Rock Art Exhibit

Here’s a flyer from the Round Rock Arts Council for the group show I joined last month that runs until Oct.15th. There will be a meet-and-greet tomorrow (Thursday) from 3 – 4:30PM at the Annex building on 1801 Old Settlers Blvd in Round Rock, TX. Please drop by if your in the Austin/Round Rock area.

Concept Sketch: Lake Salvador

I dug up some old black and white photos that I’ve combined into an idea for a new painting that I want to play around with. The location of the photos is Lake Salvador just a few miles south of New Orleans. I took these photos many years ago all in black and white.

First I picked out two photos that I thought would combine well together. There was a shrimp boat in the foreground, and a dock and the lake in the other picture. I made this pencil sketch of the way I’d like to combine them, and then used Photoshop to put them together. Originally I was planning on placing a person sitting at the end of the dock, but I didn’t like that empty space in the center, so I hunted down this guy in the boat that was in a third photo. He was kind of tiny and off scale, so I had to resize him to fit.

Next I’ll do some color sketches to get an idea for the tones I want. I’m remembering this was all shot in a nice warm glow of morning, so I’ll target that.