Expeditionary Art owner Maria Coryell-Martin has worked on the spot under some incredibly harsh conditions. Snow and ice don’t appear to daunt her in the least; she’s prepared and dresses accordingly. Take a peek at this demonstration done on the spot in Niaqornat, Greenland, “the village at the end of the world.”
assorted watercolor pigments, graphite pencil, watercolor journal or sketchbook
Here, Maria has the best seat in the house for her winter landscape.
STEP ONE: Capture the Image
A quick pencil sketch orients the village and mountains on Maria’s page and lets her settle on her composition.
STEP TWO: Place the Color
She planned the color and placement, then applied the initial washes.
STEP THREE: Apply Final Touches
She developed the painting and added details.
Use materials that will cooperate in the weather you’ll be dealing with as well. If it’s very cold, you may have to keep your pens or waterbrushes inside your clothes until they’re ready to be used, or stick with a graphite pencil. (I recently had to hold my frozen pen in my hand until it thawed enough to use!)
Colored pencils may work better for you than watercolors, in some instances (though some artists add a bit of alcohol to their paint water in bitter weather to keep it from freezing). Be aware that watercolor crayons or wax pastels may melt or crack and dry if it’s too hot, so don’t leave them in a car in the summer. Even regular colored pencils can dry out and crack in harsh weather.
A broad-brimmed hat may help shade you and your paper if you’re painting in the sun, where your paint tends to dry quickly. Also, polarized sunglasses help keep you from going snowblind with white paper in the sun, too. They may affect your color sense but not nearly as much as the glare off of your paper.
In the strong sunlight, Vicky Williamson wisely opts for a hat to shade both herself and her paper. Notice how she’s also positioned herself with her back to the sun to cast additional shade on her work surface.
Abroad in the American Southwest, Canadian artist Shari Blaukopf packed an artist’s umbrella for sun protection.
The shade paid off, allowing Shari to judge both color and value in this gorgeous watercolor.
For this sketch, I crawled into a hole in the rocks (watching for snakes, scorpions and other desert beasties, of course!) and sketched from there since it was the only shade around. I used a combination of Burnt Sienna, Quinacridone Burnt Scarlet and Ultramarine Blue. I left a lot of white paper to suggest the searing hot desert sunlight.
Botanical artist, Shevaun Doherty often attracts an audience of adults and kids as she sketches. Here, the children have settled in to join her in drawing.
Shevaun Doherty often paints close-ups of what she’s drawing. These gorgeous, ripe olives seem to pop off the page!