Today lets explore hues and edges. One of the most difficult aspects of watercolor is achieving glowing saturated hues. Hues are colors. This lesson will use our AY. Try a brush stroke of AY like 1/2 pigment and 1/2 water. Now try one 3/4 pigment and 1/4 water. One would expect the latter to be more brilliant… but it isnt. The reason is the more pigment does not mean the more brilliant. ( and yellow is the most difficult pigment to work with) The more pigment the less light shines through to reflect off the paper beneath. More pigment means dulling the results. So the less pigment the great glowing that area can be IF … and yes there is an IF. What helps it to glow is what is painting around it. ( JOni this one is for you!!!). Painting an object in isolation of its surroundings cuts in 1/2 at least the tools you have to make an object beautiful.
While the first wash of color is still damp I went in with a very tender cool to start modeling the flower.
And now the edge part… planning soft and hard edges in a painting is critical. Hard edges stop and attract the eye. Soft edges let the eyes move across a form. As you model an object think about where to soften edges so that the object does not become a ‘cut out’. Right now the little white crocus in the lower right looks ‘cut out’ though I have started to soften the edges in the left petal but introducing the background into the flower as shading. This is working at not seeing ‘the object’ and the ‘background’ as distinct and separate. We need to see the whole abstract lights and darks that transcend the literal objects. I have also started to do this in the stem of the daffodil.
The pigments used in this exercise are AY, CB and Opera… yes that is all you need!!! Notice too, how the background leans towards a purple grey. Why would I have done this? Answer correctly and you win a prize!!