DICKEY RIDGE
Watercolor on Strathmore rough paper
5 1⁄2" × 9" (14cm × 23cm)
Mapping mountain ranges can be very simple when the haze shrouds them, as it so often does in the eastern mountains. Here, you see the soft blues, gray-blues and lavenders of the Shenandoah Mountains. I pushed the colors in the foreground a bit, but they were already very rich on that early November day.
Granulating colors like Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Sienna worked well to suggest the mountains in the middle distance, and a mixture of a very pale wash of Phthalo Blue and Cobalt Blue suggested those in the distance. Each receding mountain looks paler and paler, suggesting greater distance.
After everything dried, I lifted the shafts of light that pierced the haze by loosening pigment with a clean, wet bristle brush and then blotting with a tissue.
In Virginia, the vultures stay year-round, riding the warmer thermals of air. A gathering like this is a common sight, and we always greet “Buzzard” and appreciate his grace as well as his work as cleanup crew!
I shot this photo after sketching so I would have a photographic record of the place. You can see how much I edited out for the painting.