Q4 Artist Study

The creation of my artist study displays an inspired japanese bridge hovering over a pond filled with lily pads. The background of my artwork is a gradient of light colors representing foliage. When creating this artwork, I wanted to convey a sense of scenery and tranquility that I receive when I look at nature and specially ponds.

When creating this artwork, I wanted to originally use oil paints to stay true to my artist style, which was Monet. However, I ended up using watercolor for my piece. Regarding tools and materials, I used three different kinds of paint brushes, a water cup, watercolors, a watercolor palette, newspapers, frog tape, and watercolor paper. I used frog tape to tape my watercolor paper to my table so the paper doesn’t curl upwards. I feel that this work is something new and different from my last project which was my still life. I say this because my still life was only done in pencil and had no color or values as opposed to this piece which has different layers.

My first step was to do brainstorm what I actually wanted to draw. I did two outlines of my final product but both were at different angles. One being close up while the other being zoomed out and showing more of the landscape. I ended up choosing the close up perspective of the bridge. I then started to do my rough draft and figuring out different color combinations I wanted to try. This was followed by me starting my final piece. I first did a light wash of the base color and continually started to layer color on top of color to add more depth. This project was inspired by the artist Monet, specifically this artwork which can be found here.  

When watercoloring I think it’s important to be patient with your work when you’re layering different colors. If you decide to add more color and the last paint didn’t dry yet, then the pigment will just go everywhere. One technique that I learned was how to ombre colors, so they look that they flow smoothly in together. As well as freely painting. When I usually paint, I get scare of overpainting and accidentally brushing a color onto something that it wasn’t supposed to go on. Overall this was a fulfilling experience that made me want to paint more in the future, I also found it relaxing and eased my mind.