watercolor

Light across a lawn

coreyaber

There’s a nice house and garage in town that’s set back from the street in the trees. I see it every week, and the light coming across the lawn is always so appealing. I’ve taken a bunch of photos over time. With a gloomy day today, it seemed worth revisiting them for a small sketch to practice capturing light across a lawn. 

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Another Potomac River study

coreyaber

I’ve drawn and painted this scene before on pink paper, on regular paper, with a pink casein background, and now with a focus on warm and cool colors. I’ve been looking at Monet’s paintings, and he worked on the same scene on the Seine (which reminds me of this scene a bit) over and over again with different lighting and color schemes. Thought I’d give it a try with lemon yellow, cad red, and cobalt blue in a moleskine pocket watercolor notebook focusing more on color than value, trying to learn from Monet. 

Sky study

coreyaber


Interesting sky from the other night. Not exactly a realist depiction, but I was attracted to the warm clouds against a muted blue sky and wanted to see how to get the feeling down on paper after the fact. Prussian blue, nickel azo yellow, brown madder, and burnt sienna. 3×5 Pentalic watercolor sketchbook. 

Potomac River

coreyaber


There’s a place in the Potomac River not far from my house that’s really peaceful. Not too many people go there. I tried to capture that sense of calm with an earth color palette of Prussian Blue, Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna, and Yellow Ochre. I think I’d do this a little differently again with the hanging branch left of center. The even split of the picture feels a little jarring. 

Riverwalk watercolor 

coreyaber


Tiny sketch of The Riverwalk in Frederick.

I used a small flat brush I converted to a travel brush and the tiny travel brush that comes with Winsor and Newton pocket kits. I always have the intention of using this setup when out, but tiny doesn’t necessarily mean faster. This took about an hour. Still, it was good to see that I can fit a fairly substantial scene in a small book.

For colors I kept it muted with yellow ochre, brown madder, cerulean blue, Prussian blue, sepia, and permanent green olive with a little white mixed in at the end for the lilly pads. 

Here’s a close up. Thanks for reading.

Sunset over Gulfport, MS

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I was in Gulfport, MS recently for work. I didn’t get a chance to paint while there, but got a nice photo of the sky over downtown (painted just now) on my way to dinner at Corks and Cleaver, a very cool farm to table restaurant with delicious food and a great atmosphere. Highly recommend it to anyone who goes to Gulfport. 

The painting was done with in a Pentalic wayercolor notebook with Sennelier Yellow Sophie, Daniel Smith Prussian Blue, Schmincke Permanent Carmine, and Sennelier Titanium White.

Thanks for reading.