New horizons

(C) 2016 Dale DiMauro

This is a little study I worked on between watercolors last week. I worked on several pictures recently at various stages of completion including a larger picture(18" x 24"). Thus, there were literally moments when I was caught waiting for the paper to dry.

This winter whether it shows or not, I have been expanding my color mixing palette. I purchased this little color mixing guide(titled: Colour Mixing Guide: Watercolour, by Julie Collins) before the holidays at the Toadstool bookstore in Keene, NH. For sometime, I have pursued a greater variety of darks which I find bring out the light in a painting. In addition, there are a great range of warm and cool grays which I had not capitalized on.

In this image for the sky, I combined winsor blue(red shade) with raw sienna which created this creamy- minty green color. For the structure of the tree I used sepia and ultramarine while aspects of the water utilized ultramarine and burnt umber.  This expanding knowledge of color is providing me with a greater resource to draw upon. I find subtle differences in color can portray significant atmospheric effects in watercolor. So much that I am considering reorganizing how I array my colors on my palette.