54 Watercolor artist | DECEMBER 2019
He lets the white of the paper create most of the con-
trasting light in his work by painting around it instead of
using masking, although he does use white paint for high-
lights and to achieve the brightness he desires, sometimes
applying it as an underlayer. “Sometimes the paper isn’t
white enough,” Hanson says, “so, for me, white paint
makes things simpler and the eff ect better. I do whatever
a painting needs to make it work. I don’t care to be a purist.”Bit by Bit
Hanson begins his cobblestone street nocturnes by painting
the street fi rst, and then he works one section at a time,
moving from foreground to middle ground to background.
“Sometimes I have to paint the painting twice if areas aren’t
dark enough and I have to adjust values,” he says. “AfterI’ve propped it up to look at it, I may
notice that the buildings in the back-
ground come forward too much, so I’ll
add another layer to push them back.
Or, I’ll see that the refl ections need to
come forward, so I’ll intensify them.”
Hanson notes that the pigments in
watercolor are the same as those in oil
and acrylic; it’s only the medium
that’s diff erent. “In watercolor, I can
achieve a really opaque look just by
using less water,” he says. “I’ll put a
layer down and fl oat something else
over if it doesn’t look right, and then
I’ll go in and create more textures. It’s
a lot of layering.”BELOW
“I believe the painted
detail creates a
hyperreality,”
Hanson says of
A Late Evening Stroll
in Rome (watercolor
on paper, 19¼ x26).
As the street recedes,
it leads the eye to the
earthy orange hues
in the distance.
“The two groups of
people break up the
middle ground.”