March 2023

Fort Flagler bluff

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Walking on the beach with someone you love is a favorite pastime in the Pacific Northwest. The pungent smells of salt air, sea water and marine life make for good memories. I painted this watercolor series from a photo of a beach at Fort Flagler, not too far from here. It was in an article explaining how the silt and dirt from bluffs in Puget Sound fall into the water and feed the shoreline with material for new beaches that become habitat for marine life.

I made a watercolor from the photo, then remembered that my class assignment is to do a black-and-white version. So I painted the black and white watercolor, which is probably better than the color version. The next day I painted a second version of the scene in color. You can decide which one you like better.

First version. I like the softness and looseness, especially the way the skies, the beach, the line of the bluff, and the beach log all point to the center of interest, the figures.
Black and white version. This seems a little more free.
Second watercolor version. I think the colors are better than the first version, but the top line of the bluff is too hard and jagged.

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Cabin on the bay

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I was captivated by a watercolor painting by artist Jerry Stitt showing a cabin by the edge of a bay. I painted a copy, and then I made a second version with changes to make it my own. I reversed the image left to right and changed the background.

I was happy with the foggy mountaintop in the color version. You get this affect by painting the background clouds, then waiting until just the right moment to add the trees on the ridgetop. If you time it right, the edge of the ridge melts into the clouds, giving the appearance of a rainy mountain day. If you add the ridge too soon, it just dissolves in the clouds. If you wait too long (as I did in the black and white painting), it becomes a hard edge.

Value study

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Trailer on Big Valley road

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Big Valley, just north of Poulsbo, was once a bustling community of small farms and pastures strung along the valley with fir trees on the ridges above. Because of its iconic beauty, the County has spared it the plague of modern development so it retains the character of early Kitsap County. It’s a great place for watercolor painting.

I particularly like this trailer along the road. It’s a little run-down, but it’s homey, and in my imagination the family who lives there has a real sense of ownership of their piece of the valley.

I made a black and white painting to get the values right, then I made several watercolors.

Trailer on Big Valley Road.
Value study

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Rainy day on Tracyton Boulevard

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On a rainy day last week, I took a drive down Tracyton Boulevard. It’s a winding road along the shores of Dye’s Inlet, and it has some great views. I took a photo of a car on a curve of the road, and made a painting of it when I got back in my studio.

The assignment for my watercolor class is to paint a one-color version of a scene, then paint a three-color version of the same scene. So I made a one-color painting with Payne’s Gray, then I made a three-color painting using Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Umber, and Quinacridone Gold. My goal was to paint the background trees wet-in-wet to capture the feeling of a foggy, rainy day.

My three-color version.
The one-color version.

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