When the sun is rising over a misty forest clearing, it is a luminous, lovely time of day that is irresistible to paint. The far trees are abstract and almost flattened in their simplicity and the colors are simplified, too. Details are visible only in the foreground, and the contrast between warm and cool colors is subtle and dreamlike, as though the viewer is not quite fully awake so early in the morning.
One early June morning in Maine, I came across just such a scene and it has haunted my imagination ever since. I couldn’t resist trying to capture that almost abstract luminescence with watercolor pencils. I chose just a few pure, clean colors to keep the scene as fresh and simple as it was that morning.
Strathmore rough watercolor paper
hues of your choice
hues of your choice
I tried a couple different formats for this painting—vertical and horizontal—and did a couple small thumbnail sketches. Here’s the one I settled on.
Use a rough paper with a strong texture that can handle the very wet washes without buckling for this painting.
To suggest the luminous effects of early morning light, keep your colors almost pastel in the first application, using mostly a cool yellow and a small amount of warm, light blue and blending to make a soft, tender green. Wet your painting and blend very smoothly in the grass area.
You may be excited by the interesting textures in the simple tree shapes in the background (the result of the waxy pigment from the watercolor crayons deposited on the peaks of the rough watercolor paper), but resist the urge to blend too much. Use cool, transparent blues there to maintain a sense of distance.
MORNING LIGHT, MAINE
Watercolor pencil and watercolor crayon on Strathmore rough watercolor paper
12" × 9" (30cm × 23cm)
To maintain a strong, textured effect in the middle ground, draw some of the tree trunks and branches directly into a damp wash with the tip of your watercolor pencil. The rough paper works well to capture that effect. In order to retain the misty, dreamlike effect of a morning in Maine, resist the urge to add too much foreground detail.