Branch patterns

 

This is the last work I made during our painting week, still using an abstract background and painting on top of that. Our teacher Ad van Aart asked me to paint only branches on a background, in a way that the trees would not be in the painting - going as abstract as possible for me after this week.

This time I chose a blue background, simply because the other colour choices did not seem 'right'. The branches had to have a contrasting colour and yellow or orange do limit the choices in contrasting colours very much - only a very dark blue or brown are options on such a background. Using a blue background I could still chose brown, but also a dark red or violet and even a dark green.

For this painting I decided to use another earth colour with a violet shade that could be light when using a lot of water or very dark and opaque with just a little water to paint easier.

Because the trees were to be out of sight I painted large branches coming in from all directions and added smaller branches - using a smaller brush - to the composition of the large ones. While at work I decided to use one of the lighter spots of the background to show a glimpse of that background - or sky - and make the branch pattern a little less dense around it.

While painting I have used other line patterns for my branches than I used in the 'Trees in the foreground' paintings (which have sharp angles), the branches in this painting have rounded curves and angles.  Filling the whole paper like this was a lot of work, in the end it became almost meditative and I enjoyed working like this very much.

The information about the materials I have used, the size of this watercolour painting and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog.