A hike down to the state park lake on a quiet Monday afternoon felt magical with the sunlight streaming through the new leaves. Birdsong everywhere brightened my spirits.
Reaching the lake, I immersed myself in sketching the bushes on the far side of the lake. The late afternoon sun lit their foliage, picking them out from the shadowy hillside background.
I first drew with a permanent Faber Castell Pitt pen. When the ink had dried, I painted in washes of sap green and a cooler green made from Hooker's green and French ultramarine blue. I mixed up a few different greens:
- Yellow Ochre added to the blue green mixture dulled it a bit.
- Winsor lemon mixed with sap green brightened it for the weeds along the shoreline on the right.
- Phthalo blue mixed with burnt Sienna created the deep forest green in the hillside behind the bushes
- I occasionally added some sap green to the phthalo blue-burnt Sienna mix to alter the hue in the background
- The ripples in the water were made with the phthalo blue & burnt Sienna mixture. I used more burnt Sienna to make brown-green lake water.
After I had finished painting the lake scene, I noticed a male Baltimore Oriole perched in a sapling just 12 feet away! I sketched him in pen as he sat in different positions.
His plumage was so intensely orange, I used a technique called glazing to recreate the glowing orange color of his feathers in the sunshine. With glazing, you layer in a bright, often light color underneath another wash. Painting in layers and letting each layer dry, creates a bolder effect than simply mixing all the colors together at once.
Here, I painted a wash of warm azo yellow and let it dry. Then I brushed in a mix of azo yellow and warm Pyrrol red. Yellow is often the color I use in glazing beneath other layers for bright leaves, bold birds, or colorful flowers. Yellow adds a sunny effect, and the finished painting seems to glow.
I hope you take some time to play with your art supplies this week and try out these techniques!
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