Late Fall Landscape

(C) 2017 Dale DiMauro

Cheap Joes, a mail order art supplier, sells these watercolor sample packs. They assemble a variety of watercolor sheets from various manufacturers for artists to experiment with. The sheet I used to start this picture came from one of those packs. I am not sure who made this sheet but it is a paper I have not used before. There are many manufacturers of watercolor paper, such as Arches, Fabriano, and Saunders etc., with a rich history dating back hundreds of years. I have found this paper frustrating as it buckles quite a bit when wet even though it is much thicker than the paper I normally use.

The subject is a local ice pond in late fall, which caught my eye. There is little subtle color in this scene, which I like, as it is full of mystery. The heavy shadows, stillness and eerie silence seems like the perfect scene to attempt to express in watercolor. I under painted the shoreline to the right with a warm color which will be blocked in with other dark colors revealing the glint of light reflected off the downed tree.

This is definitely not my best watercolor but sometimes I learn the most from these kind of struggles. It forces me to consider how I would approach it differently next time. I do like the quality of the surface of the pond with it's shimmering ripples.