This is my first art show with the Federation of Canadian Artists. I submitted 5 paintings for jurying.
Two paintings will be hung at the Rotary Centre for the Arts in the South Atrium October 16-18, 2027. The other 3 will still be available for sale through the online portion of the show.
Due to space constraints they only accepted up to 2 paintings per artist for the physical show.
I will also have a vendor booth at the 2026 Art Market at Kelowna Artscape in the Sun FM Rehearsal Room, adjacent to the Box Office at the Rotary Centre for the Arts on Friday, October 16 – 1:00 to 9:00 pm and Saturday, October 17 – 9:00 am to 5:00 pm where I will be selling art cards and prints!
I was accepted into Lake Country Art Walk. I’m working on a series of tree paintings for the show. Come and visit me September 12-13 in Winfield, BC!
Lake Country Art Walk is the largest art show in the Okanagan. There will be over 200 artists, and this year ArtWalk is moving down the street. Come see me at 9718 Bottom Wood Lake Road in Lake Country.
Getting these 10×18 framed prints ready for Lone Wolf Gallery in Sun Peaks Resort. I love the tall narrow paintings. One would look great at the end of a hallway, or 3 together on a larger wall. Which one is your favourite?
These framed watercolour prints are available at Lone Wolf Gallery in Sun Peaks, BC. Call the gallery at 250-578-2673 to inquire.
Lone Wolf Gallery built a wall to showcase my art and I love it! Click the link to see a short video clip of the store and my feature wall.
Today is the 25 year anniversary of my first Art Show. Incredibly I sold 19 originals in one night! I’ve never repeated that feat. It didn’t matter to me that they were inexpensive, many unframed. I was vibrating with energy. It was the first time I realized that I could BE an artist. I did not consider the possibility of a career as an artist until this night 25 year ago.
These original watercolour paintings are available at Lone Wolf Gallery in Sun Peaks, BC. Call the gallery at 250-578-2673 to inquire.
“Afterglow” TWS74 4.75×5.5 original watercolour mounted on 10×12 conservation mat $175 •SOLD•
Watercolour inspired by a photo by Kathy Rees with Permission. Thank you Kathy.
“Golden Hour” TWS75 5×5.5 original watercolour mounted on 10×12 conservation mat $175 •SOLD•
Watercolour inspired by a photo by Kathy Rees with Permission. Thank you Kathy.
“Snow Ghost Snowline” TWS53b 6.5×7.5 original watercolour mounted on 12×12 conservation mat $195 •SOLD•
“It’s Going to be a White Christmas” TWS60b 7.5×7.5 original watercolour mounted on 12×12 conservation mat $225 •SOLD•
“First Snow” TFS9 5×7 original watercolour framed in 8×10 barnboard frame $275 •SOLD•
“Dappled Light” TFS11 5×7 original watercolour framed in 10×12 barnboard frame $325 *SOLD*
My paints are super dry and need some attention. It’s interesting to see which ones are smooth and look like new and which ones are cracked and crumbly.
Here is a video of my going through my palettes and reviving the colours.
Be warned, there is a lot of lint and dust since my palettes have been sitting untouched for quite a while. If you want to clean off an old dusty palette you can put the whole thing under water, or you can swish your brush in water, clean off the top layer of the paint, repeat a couple times, and it should be good to go.
I found out that my professional watercolour paints revived more easily than beginner grade colours. The professional paints reactivated very quickly and had lots of colour. Even the beginner paints still worked though.
Getting back to painting after a long break isn’t always easy, but the hardest step is just getting started, and this felt like a good way to get the paints flowing again. Besides, my palettes really needed this. I couldn’t have started a painting with all the dust on them!
Around half way through I do a demonstration of mixing my own black with two of my most used colours.
This video is far from perfect – wobbly video, in and out of focus, sometimes painting almost out of view (haha) – but it’s a start, and that feels like a big step forward.
You know when you haven’t painted in a while, getting started is the hardest thing? Well I thought I would paint my painter’s block to help me get over that hurdle. My paints and brush are soooo dry since I haven’t used them in so long. That’s the magic of watercolour though, your paints can always come back to life. I hope this will inspire you to paint your painter’s block too.
We are going to paint our sky AND an underpainting for a tree, all in the same wash!
Why would we do that you ask?
Oh my goodness, this is going to transform your paintings! You don’t always have to do an underpainting, but sometimes is can produce amazing results.
As a beginner I would sometimes paint everything with such a dry brush that I would end up with white flecks all throughout my painting and it would have no watercolour feel to it. A wet in wet underpainting would have solved that. An underpainting can cover the whole paper, or just a specific part of the composition.
Here are two paintings I did a few years apart. The one on the left is painted with a very dry brush. I wasn’t sure how to paint the mountain behind the trees, and I wasn’t using much water in my brush, other than in the sky. The result is white flecks all throughout my painting and it looks very dry.
The painting on the right has a wet in wet underpainting. I still saved my white paper for the top of the mountain (by keeping that part dry) but if you look closely you will see how the sky bleeds seamlessly into the background of the bushes on the right.
Sure there are leaves painted on top of the sky, but those were added later.
If you look past the details on the bushes, you’ll see a soft green background that was painted wet in wet at the same time as the sky. No harsh outline!
Even the trees at the base of the mountain had a wet in wet wash (an underpainting) which I let dry before I added details.
So, what exactly is an underpainting?
An underpainting is the first layer of paint which is intended to be painted over. It’s a foundation for the rest of the painting.
Acrylic painters use underpaintings all the time. They might paint the canvas bright orange for example, and then paint a mountain and sky with contrasting colours, lots of blues and purples, and just have tiny flecks of the underpainting showing through to give the paintings life.
But how do you do an underpainting in watercolour without making a mess? I’m definitely not going to paint my watercolour paper bright orange if I want blue and purple mountains. Since watercolours are transparent, we know we can’t layer colours that way.
In watercolours, the underpainting is simply a wash (commonly wet in wet) that goes underneath your painting. You let it totally dry, and then you paint your layers and details on top. That’s all.
So when you painted a sky over your entire background, let it dry, and then painted your mountains on top, like we did for our misty mountains, your sky was an underpainting.
This works when you are painting from light to dark. However, if your mountain needs to be lighter than your sky, say if it has snow on it, then you’ll need to save your white paper by painting your sky around your mountain.
You might not do an underpainting in that case, or you may choose to underpaint only certain areas of your composition.
Let’s look at some more examples of underpaintings and where you might use them.
In watercolour, an underpainting can serve to:
Establish the sky and water
Here is an underpainting and the finished painting.
I painted the sky and base layer of the water all in one wet in wet wash. The islands and trees were glazed once the underpainting was dry.
Establish clouds and soft shadows
This underpainting was painted in one wet in wet wash as well, but a blossom accidentally formed as it dried. I talk you through the underpainting in this short video: https://youtu.be/0m8YQdO5DrQ:
If you like, you can also watch me paint the mountain in this short time-lapse: https://youtu.be/xnV_yCjai6I:
Establish the sky and form of the land
Here I used the underpainting to fully paint the sky and also the underlying shadows of the landscape wet in wet.
If I just leave the snow white then it ends up looking very flat.
Notice that I included some pink from the sky reflecting in the snow in the underpainting too.
The only part that I left white from the paper was the sun spot. This helps it stand out as the focal point of the composition.
Form the first layer of the entire composition
Provide an opportunity for negative space elements
In this example, the underpainting included everything except the waterfall which was left dry to preserve the white of the paper.
To bring out the shapes of the logs and trees, I painted the negative space, which means I painted the shapes of the shadows around the trees rather than paint the trees themselves. The colours from the underpainting pop out and become the trees and logs. Then I added some final details on top.
Create the sky and shadows on snow all at once
In this painting I left the flag, the light, the structures and some of the trees dry so I could save the white of the paper. I wet the rest of the paper and painted the sky as well as an underpainting of the mountain and snow. This is time saving and unifies the painting.
The above examples give a good idea of where underpaintings can be used. These aren’t even the only ways. Hopefully some of these ideas will inspire you in the future.
This is only an excerpt from a 55 page ebook explaining how to paint clouds and create depth and harmony with underpaintings.
This is one of 6 in my watercolour class, Introduction to Watercolour Basics, Watercolours Made Easy.
In this course you will learn all the techniques needed to build a solid foundation in watercolour, and how to overcome common struggles that beginners normally encounter. You will see each technique demonstrated in a step-by-step, easy to follow manner with a pace specifically geared towards beginners. I demonstrate everything twice so you can relax and watch the first one and then paint along with me.
The course includes over 10 hours of video instruction as well as 6 e-books adding up to over 320 pages of comprehensive step by step notes.
Sign up for a free tutorial on How to Paint Misty Mountains and Misty Trees, an excerpt from my watercolour class, and this time it includes a free video and a free eBook with step by step instructions.
Super easy and fast way to paint trees in watercolour! Step by step notes in the captions below and also a video to follow along to here:
You can use any green but I like to use a mixture of hooker’s green, ultramarine blue, and burnt sienna to create a rich forest green.
Gently scrape your brush off the edge of your palette so that there isn’t a big droplet of paint at the end of your brush. It’s easier to get defined lines if the brush isn’t overloaded.
Honestly this is a really easy and fast way to paint watercolour trees. This is just a 1/2″ flat brush. Hold the brush vertically and just use the very tip of it to tap the paper where you want the top of the tree to be.
As you tap the paper, the lines will create the branches of the pine tree.
Angle your brush out slightly up and away from the center of the tree and tap a few more times.
Go back and forth from one side to the other dabbing your brush and pivoting your brush.
It’s super fast to dab in the rest of the tree.
Try not to fill in every gap. You don’t want it to look like a perfect triangle. In fact it looks better if there are a few air holes left where you can see through to the sky.
If you would like to add in some depth, and variety, it looks great to dab a couple of other colours into the tree while it is still wet.
Ultramarine works great with forest green and it will blend into the tree to create some shadows.
I mixed a little aureolin yellow with hooker’s green and dabbed it onto the other side of the tree.
If the paint on your brush is wetter than the paint on the paper, then it will create little wet puddles which will dry with an outline.
These puddles are often called blossoms, runbacks, or cauliflowers, and they are caused by wet paint trying to bleed into damp paint.
Once the paper has already started to dry, the paint loses its capacity to mix together and blend on the paper, and it resists against the wet paint which sits on top and the tension created between the wet and damp paper causes pigment to be pushed to the edges of the wet area and dry darker than the rest of the painting, making what looks like an outline.
I’m not saying you need to avoid this, as it can look great, especially in a tree like this, but it is really good to know why blossoms happen and how to avoid them if we need to.
You can avoid blossoms by matching the wetness of your brush to the wetness of your paper. So you could mix more pigment into your paint mixture, or you could dab off the extra wet paint on an old tea towel.
Here I’m just adding some ultramarine blue to my second tree while it is still wet.
A little hooker’s green mixed with aureolin yellow dabbed in to create some bright areas within the branches.
In this course you will learn all the techniques needed to build a solid foundation in watercolour, and how to overcome common struggles that beginners normally encounter. You will see each technique demonstrated in a step-by-step, easy to follow manner with a pace specifically geared towards beginners. I demonstrate everything twice so you can relax and watch the first one and then paint along with me.
The course includes over 10 hours of video instruction as well as 6 e-books adding up to over 320 pages of comprehensive step by step notes.
When I first started painting with watercolours my paintings turned out streaky, dull, and splotchy. I was so frustrated until I took my first workshop and as soon as my instructor showed me how to paint the paper with a flat blue wash, I was hooked. It was so smooth and so bright compared to anything I had tried before. I’m going to break it down into the very basic steps so that we don’t leave anyone behind, starting with how to mix the paint.
Here is a video if you prefer to watch the demo. Otherwise the step by step description is below with screenshots.
I’m working on 140lb (300g) Arches cold press paper. My paper is 7.5×11″ divided into 9 sections with blue painter’s tape. I’m going to be using a 1/2″ flat brush.
Dip your brush in water and bring it into your mixing area and then with your wet brush, tickle the paint and bring it into the mixing area and swish it around in the water.
If your paint is freshly squeezed out you won’t need to tickle it much at all to get a good amount of pigment, but if you are painting from pans or from tube paint that was previously squeezed out and then had time to dry, then you will have to tickle it more vigorously.
Dip your brush in water to bring more water into the mixing area and then continue to bring more paint and mix it thoroughly into your mixing area so that there aren’t any undissolved bits.
If you tip your palette up and all the paint runs down your palette, leaving it white, then your paint is too runny.
If you tip your palette up and the paint doesn’t move at all, then it is too thick. You want your paint to be nice and creamy, but with enough water in it that it still has some movement to it. You know when you defrost frozen blueberries in the microwave and some of the juice oozes out, that is the consistency of the paint that we want. Not too watery but not too thick. Rich and juicy is what we are going for, and you’ll need a nice sized puddle of paint so that you don’t run out half way through your painting
When you scrape your brush through your mixed paint, you should still see some of the colour on the palette. It should flow like cream, not spread like cream cheese.
Clean your brush thoroughly and wet the paper with clean water (well, at least fairly clean.
My water is light blue but it’s not going to tint my paper and if it does I’m painting the paper blue so it will be fine.) Go back and forth and every which way to make sure that the paper is evenly wet.
Tip your paper up to the light to make sure that it has a nice even shine all over and that you haven’t missed any spots.
You want it to be nice and shiny, but not drippy. If the water is pooling then it is too wet. If the paper is matte then you need to rewet it again to get a near gloss.
Dry off your brush and then dip it in the paint and fully immerse your bristles. Don’t just dab the end of your brush, swish the whole brush end in the paint so it is fully saturated.
If there is a big droplet of paint at the end of your brush then take it off by either by dabbing it on your palette, scraping it off the edge of your palette, or dabbing the tip of the brush on an old tea towel. Start at the top of your wet paper and paint a line across from one side to the other in one steady motion.
Overlap the first line and paint a second line. Dip your brush in paint and then dab off the drip from the end of your brush. Don’t dip in water at this point, just the paint.
Notice that whenever you lift your brush off the paper the paint will burst.
Since I am right handed and working from left to right, the paint will burst as I lift my brush so I will get a bigger deposit of paint and pigment on the right side of my painting.
I won’t worry about this as I’m painting or try to fix it because at the end I can just tip my painting to the right and hold a paper towel just at the very edge and it will wick up any extra paint if there still is any.
Since we are working on wet paper some of that paint will flow back into the painting and blend all by itself.
Sometimes when the painting is nice and wet then it is ok to go back over an area to smooth it out, but for the most part I want to avoid going back into an area that I already painted. Watercolour is transparent and light travels through the paint and reflects off the paper into our eyes.
If we overwork an area by painting over and over in one spot, then we smoosh the pigment into the fibres of the paper and it dulls it right down, plus as the paint starts to dry then painting over it will cause streaks and blossoms to form. So it is best to use as few brush strokes as possible and let the water and paint do most of the work for you. The paint will continue to blend on its own without the need to ‘smooth’ it out. This is something that will be easier with time as you get used to your paper and paints.
Continue to overlap previous brushstrokes and work your way from the top to the bottom of the paper.
Dip in the paint once more to ensure that we keep a fairly even value throughout the wash.
Dab off the excess on your palette or towel. Overlap the last brushstroke and complete the wash.
See how the masking tape is wet with paint? We don’t want to leave it there because as the painting is drying it could flow back into the painting and cause unwanted blossoms to form.
Wipe off the masking tape with paper towel, and you can also tip your painting and wick away any extra paint to prevent the paint from pooling on the paper.
In this course you will learn all the techniques needed to build a solid foundation in watercolour, and how to overcome common struggles that beginners normally encounter. You will see each technique demonstrated in a step-by-step, easy to follow manner with a pace specifically geared towards beginners. I demonstrate everything twice so you can relax and watch the first one and then paint along with me.
The course includes over 10 hours of video instruction as well as 6 e-books adding up to over 320 pages of comprehensive step by step notes.
What you may not know about me is that I did not grow up painting, and the first time as an adult that I used watercolour paints, everything turned out so streaky and opaque that I threw the paints back in the box in frustration! For the next year I painted with a tray of Crayola kids paints!
Finally, I took a watercolour workshop and as soon as we painted the page blue and it was so smooth and bright and luminous, I was hooked. That one course changed everything for me.
Now, 20 years later, every time I teach beginners, I try to inspire that same passion that I gained for watercolours when I took my first workshop. Beginners find my classes incredibly rewarding because there is so much progress in such a short time, and everything we do is so new and exciting.
This course is perfect for you if:
You have dabbled in watercolour but feel like you don’t know what you are doing.
You have tried watercolours but feel frustrated and hopeless.
Your paintings turn out dull, muddy, and streaky.
Or, you always wished you could paint but never had the courage to try.
In this Introduction to Watercolour Basics course you will learn all the techniques needed to build a solid foundation in watercolours and how to overcome common struggles that beginners normally encounter. I am going to take the intimidation out of watercolour so that it is easy and fun.
SUPPLIES LIST
• masking tape or painter’s tape (½” recommended)
• old tea towel
• paper towel
• watercolour palette, 12×8 or larger is best but it’s ok to start out with what you have as long as you have space to mix colours. Margarine lids, ice cream pail lids, or white yogurt lids work well for mixing paint.
• 1 sheet of 22×30 ARCHES Cold Press 140lb Watercolour Paper
• 1 set of 18 Pentel Paints or 1 small tube each of cobalt blue, ultramarine blue, Prussian blue, hooker’s green, transparent yellow such as aureolin yellow or new gamboge yellow, raw sienna or yellow ochre, burnt sienna, and a dark pink colour such as permanent rose
• 2 boards or thick card to tape your paper to
• Watercolour brushes have long bristles that come to a point when you flick a wet brush. I mainly use a ½” flat, a size 6 round brush, and a size 1 rigger/liner/script brush.
• a small utility blade / exacto knife / box cutter with a ½” / 9mm wide blade with a lock mechanism (if you can’t find this then you can use something flat and strong such as a credit card cut to a half inch width, or the flat end of a utensil)
• a clear or white tealight candle
• salt
• scissors
• pencil
• white eraser
• a water bottle to stay hydrated
• a black pen with permanent ink – optional
• sea sponge or torn pieces of a household sponge
Last year I was commissioned by the Royal Canadian Mint to design two coins for the 2014 O Canada silver coin collector’s series. When I first listened to the voice mail I didn’t believe it was real at first. I was so excited to be contacted by the Royal Canadian Mint to design not only one but two coins!
They told me that they also selected other artists to submit designs. To me it was a huge honour just to be asked for a submission, but to my delight my designs were chosen for both the limited mintage 1/2 oz. Fine Silver Coins O Canada 10 coin set as well as the 1 oz. Fine Silver Coins O Canada 5 coin set. I have been waiting since last May to see my designs as engravings on the coins. They were finally released last night and I was so excited to see my coins!
This $10 silver collector’s coin was engraved from a watercolour painting of a skier floating through champaign powder. The soft snowy slope contrasts with the steep rocky mountains in the backdrop and gives some suspense as to what terrain the skier will find over the ridge.
This $25 silver collector’s coin was engraved from a watercolour painting of a skier making first tracks on a gorgeous sunny day in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. It appears as though the skier is floating on air and indeed that is how it feels to ski on fresh powder.
Designing these coins for Canada was a huge honour for me and the highlight of my career as an artist. It’s amazing to see my watercolour painting transformed into engravings. They take on a whole different look and it wasn’t at all just a matter of copying my designs onto the coins. The engravers are true artists, interpreting each line and value and translating them into a 3D replica of the artwork. I am amazed by the fine detail they were able to achieve.
For ten years my brother, Craig Smith, was in the alternative rock band Blinded. With music as his main passion, it wasn’t surprising that on special occasions he would often surprise us with an original song. The first one was at my dad’s retirement and it was a hilarious western/folk song recounting my dad’s life story. In 2004 he wrote an original song for my mom’s leap year birthday gift and it was so good my mom sent it into CBC and they played it on the radio. More recently he wrote two songs as my wedding gift and played them at my wedding. One had us smiling emotionally and tearing up, and the other had the whole room shaking with laughter.
Most of the gifts Craig made were composed of a single song, but one year he surprised us with an entire album. In 2004, Craig and his Blinded band mates created a Christmas gift for their families made up of original songs, characters and narrative that took the listener on a magical journey to the North pole led by a very quirky elf called Norgy.
“Every year at Christmas time the story would be listened to by friends and family who would encourage them to produce it for others to enjoy as well. So during the 2010 Christmas holidays Blinded pulled up their Christmas socks, put on their festive sweaters and got back in the studio where they revamped the narrative, wrote more original Christmas songs and collaborated with many different artists and voices to create the new and improved An Elf’s Tale!”
I’m proud to say that I created the artwork for the album cover. [Edit: this was the original album cover when the story was called Santa’s Note. Since this post the name of the album has been changed to An Elf’s Tale and it has a new cover too.] At my Christmas craft fairs last year I was selling copies of the double CD. One CD has all of the original songs with the story narration, the other CD has just the songs. My husband and I had our CDs on repeat in our vehicles for a few months!
I suggest, without bias of course, that you purchase my brother’s amazing Christmas music for the upcoming holiday season! You can either purchase the full album which can be mailed to you, or you can buy a downloadable version. All of the options are available at www.anelfstale.com. Clips of the songs can be heard on the website. Your entire family will enjoy this album. It’s the best Christmas gift we ever got. :)
I’m excited to teach a beginner watercolour class at the Kelowna Art Gallery next month.
INTRODUCTION TO WATERCOLOUR Instructor: Kendra Dixson Dates: Thursdays, Sept 13 to Oct 18, 2012 Time: 6:00 to 9:00 pm Location:Kelowna Art Gallery, 1315 Water Street Register: call 250-762-2226 to register Cost: Members of Kelowna Art Gallery – $120.00 Non members – $150.00
This workshop is perfect for you if you have never tried watercolour painting, or maybe you have dabbled a little but never learned the basics.
I’m going to go over the techniques and skills needed to develop a foundation of watercolour basics.
Some of the things I’ll be going over are clear washes, textures, clouds, trees, mist, reflections in water, snow, and more.
Here is a watercolour I painted in 3 washes plus some darker details.
On July 4th I was a guest artist at the Peachland Public Library.
The Librarian read two art related stories to the children and then I did a short art demo. Well, it was as short as I could make it, but not short enough for these eager young artists. They were starting to squirm with anticipation of painting their own master pieces. Finally we set out paints and brushed for everyone and they had a blast.
It was very exciting to be called by the Kelowna Art Gallery today to be told that Barry McDivitt from CHBC News wanted to interview me. This is so funny since I just wrote my first ever press release last night but I hadn’t even sent it out yet. It feels like it’s right out of the movie The Secret.
After playing phone tag I finally got to talk to Barry and he asked me if they could do an interview this afternoon. I said I would meet him in an hour at my art studio. I was on my way home from getting groceries so when I got home I had 15 minutes to put all the groceries away, change my clothes, do my hair, put on some makeup, grab my 4×6 paintings and head out the door to my art studio. I made it at 3pm on the dot.
Barry and Jim from CHBC were in and out in less than 15 minutes. They did everything in one take. Then they headed back to their studio to edit the clip in time for the 5:00 news. True professionals. It was very exciting. I hope that little clip will help inspire others to participate in this community art project!
I’m not crazy about how they preface the story by saying that it doesn’t matter how ‘bad’ of an artist you are, you can now have your art displayed at the Kelowna Art Gallery. But if that’s what it took to encourage so many people to participate then I guess it’s okay. I just think that every one of those paintings which were submitted were very special in their own way.
Come to the Peachland Public Library to participate in an exciting World Record attempt!
The Kelowna Art Gallery is attempting to create a new world record for the most 4″x6″ original landscapes in one place.
On Saturday, January 21st from 10am-11am, I will be at the Okanagan Regional District Peachland Branch Library to facilitate an art session.
Bring your own art supplies if you have them, however there will be paper and art supplies free of charge for you to use. All you have to do is come! It’s a free event where you can get inspired to paint or draw your 4×6 entries.
If you‘d like to create some entries at home ahead of time, bring them in and I will deliver them to the Kelowna Art Gallery for you!
You don’t have to be an artist to participate! The only “rule” is that the artworks have to be 4”x6” Okanagan inspired landscapes on paper. Your entry can be created with pencil, charcoal, crayon, felt, pencil crayon, paint, or collage!
For the month of January my artwork is featured at Picture Perfect at 339 Bernard Avenue in Kelowna, BC. I’m excited because I have a whole WINDOW to myself! On display are some originals, prints and art cards. There are more in the back too so if you go by be sure to ask to see the rest of my work. Thanks for stopping by!
“Dappled Light” TFS11 5×7 original watercolour framed in 10×12 barnboard frame $325 *SOLD*
Here are two paintings I did a few years apart. The one on the left is painted with a very dry brush. I wasn’t sure how to paint the mountain behind the trees, and I wasn’t using much water in my brush, other than in the sky. The result is white flecks all throughout my painting and it looks very dry.
This works when you are painting from light to dark. However, if your mountain needs to be lighter than your sky, say if it has snow on it, then you’ll need to save your white paper by painting your sky around your mountain.
Here is an underpainting and the finished painting.
Angle your brush out slightly up and away from the center of the tree and tap a few more times.
If you would like to add in some depth, and variety, it looks great to dab a couple of other colours into the tree while it is still wet.
Dip your brush in water and bring it into your mixing area and then with your wet brush, tickle the paint and bring it into the mixing area and swish it around in the water.
Since I am right handed and working from left to right, the paint will burst as I lift my brush so I will get a bigger deposit of paint and pigment on the right side of my painting.
If we overwork an area by painting over and over in one spot, then we smoosh the pigment into the fibres of the paper and it dulls it right down, plus as the paint starts to dry then painting over it will cause streaks and blossoms to form. So it is best to use as few brush strokes as possible and let the water and paint do most of the work for you. The paint will continue to blend on its own without the need to ‘smooth’ it out. This is something that will be easier with time as you get used to your paper and paints.
