The last result of my painting vacation. This scene proved to be very challenging to make a good charcoal study, the charcoal is not as subtle as the watercolour.
Our teacher and coach Ad van Aart encouraged me to use the reference picture for this watercolour, a very grey looking scene with sand, some tree roots and just a few other elements in it. The roots had the same shade of grey as the sand, this was a very open path, too well-travelled for any mosses to grow or dead leaves to stay in place. Only the tree roots in the foreground showed some brown.
For the reference picture I kneeled down as low as possible (I had to get up again without embarassing either myself or my husband who was with me on that walk) so the shadows of the roots on the ground were very strong.
The composition is mostly decided by the darkness of the shadows.
For the watercolour painting I painted the background first and after that had dried I started to paint the lines of the tree roots, using as little paint as possible. The dark shadows were painted as dark as possible. Some of the gathered bits of wood on the right side of the large root and some large shadow areas (clouds or other trees) were painted and after that the composition was perfected with more shadows and more areas that might contain smaller branches.
The study was helpful for the placement of these areas, but I did not copy it exactly
As you can see, the charcoal study is much darker than the watercolour painting, giving more contrast in the lines, which was not what I wanted for the painting.
The painting is even better than I hoped for, thanks to the helpful comments of Ad van Aart.
The information about the materials I have used for the watercolour painting and the charcoal study can all be found in my Tumblr blog. There you can also find information about the sizes and availabilities.
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