The Artist - UK (2021-02)

http://www.painters-online.co.uk artist 31

PRACTICAL

TA w

MATERIALS

l Saunders Waterford 140lb (300gsm) Rough

l Winsor & Newton watercolours: Winsor

lemon, cadmium red, French ultramarine

blue, cobalt blue, alizarin crimson, burnt

sienna

l Brushes: squirrel mop sizes 6, 5, 4 and 2

February 2021

Capture a winter sunset

in watercolour

Paul Talbot-Greaves demonstrates how to paint the subdued light of a

winter sunset in watercolour, with advice on how to keep your colours clean

S

unsets are notoriously difficult

in watercolour because the

colours and subdued light

can all lead to a muddy finish

if you don’t approach the subject

meticulously. For this sunset I have

chosen a winter theme because the

snow adds interest, colour, light and

contrast.

The painting process

I began as I usually do with a pencil

sketch to place the main shapes in the

picture. I worked on a piece of Saunders

Waterford 140lb (300gsm) Rough surface

paper, which is a lovely cotton paper

with a great useable texture. The first

thing I did before painting was to clean

my palette. I don’t always do this but

in this case, some clean fresh colours

were imperative for painting the sky.

I also squeezed out new colour to

ensure there was no contamination

from other colours in my palette. I

began by wetting the area around the

sun with clean water and with a size

6 squirrel mop brush; I immediately

applied flowing washes of Winsor lemon

around it and added alizarin crimson

to make an orange elsewhere. At the

top, I added cobalt blue and brought

this down to meet the orange and let

them fuse together. I continued with a

very weak wash of alizarin crimson and

Winsor yellow over the remainder of

the painting and left it to dry.

The second part of my painting

process builds the colours, shapes

and values of the scene. Sometimes

this can be quite a quick, immediate

process and other times it may take

a few layers before moving on to

part three. This painting requires a

number of layers, in order to keep

the freshness and light in the colours.

I mixed some cobalt blue with my

lemon and crimson and using a small

size 2 mop brush I sketched in the

field patterns in the distance and let

them dry. With a subject like this,

patience pays dividends and the few

minutes difference between drying or

not drying can either make or break

the painting. I mixed cobalt blue and

alizarin crimson to a mid-value and

applied it liberally over the distance

and foreground with a size 5 mop brush,

leaving behind some highlights from

the previous wash.

When the shadow wash had dried,

I began building the structure of the

rocks. For the more distant shapes I

used French ultramarine and cadmium

red, adding neat cadmium red and

Winsor lemon into the flare of the sun. I

worked quite quickly using a size 2 mop

brush and switching to a size 4 mop

brush in the bigger foreground shapes.

Here I introduced burnt sienna to

French ultramarine, mixing them loosely

on the paper to generate colourful

darks.

When the colours were dry, I set

about adding further depth and shape

to the rocks using thicker paint, which

exploits the drag brush effect. With

more washes of cobalt blue and alizarin

crimson I darkened some shadows and

created further shapes in the snow. I

splashed clean water into my washes to

make colours run and form interesting

patterns then finally sprayed the sun

and scrubbed the soft light back into

the rock to blur the edge a little more.

DEMONSTRATION

Winter Sunset Across the Rocks

u STAGE ONE

I drew out the scene using a 6B pencil on a piece

of my watercolour paper. As always, my pencil was

intended as a guideline, not an outline