Winter Landscape

                                                                                 (C) 2025 Dale DiMauro
 

The more experience I gain in painting with watercolor the greater understanding of what I can do with the medium. I continue to appreciate leaving the white of the paper when I can. The dry brush texture in the middle and the contrast with other colors makes the white of the paper sing.

Recently, I came upon the combination of alizarin crimson with burnt umber and ultramarine blue. This creates a soft black in the photograph, above as, in the distant hills. It came off the brush as a fresh dark which felt great to work with.

This watercolor has winsor violet in it which provides a cool feel to the overall scene.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

                                                                                 (C) 2024 Dale DiMauro
 

Over this holiday period I have been reading Eye of the Beholder: Johannes Vermeer, Antoni Van Leeuwenhoek and the Reinvention of Seeing, by author Laura J. Snyder. At one point she references Vermeer painting color into his shadows in one or more of his lovely interior scenes in contrast with some prior painters primarily using black or dark gray. 

This thought has lingered in my conscious over the last twenty four hours or so. In the past I have been encouraged by various art instructors in go back into my shadows and describe with color and texture the feel of the landscape and its contours. 

This above landscape, has a different feel, to me simply because of the use of winsor violet. Winsor violet is a color I use sparingly, except yesterday, as it is featured in this picture. It makes a nice dark when combined with burnt umber. Mixed with raw sienna, winsor violet makes a lovely tree trunk color as can be seen in the above watercolor. Also, I used it in a color mixture for painting the distant hills.

I like the cool color temperature of the colors here and in the shadows, as it is reminiscent of some of the hollows I walk through in our local woods. In particular, the stretches of winter when the ground is absent of snow cover.