Rocks in Watercolor: Double Arch Step-By-Step

Double Arch, Arches NP, 8x10"

As I said in my previous post, I have been teaching a series of classes on "Features In the Landscape", and this fall I am covering rocks and mountains.  In addition to demonstrating El Capitan as in the previous post, in this post I demonstrate Double Arch from Arches National Park.

Double Arch is a bit more of a challenging painting mainly because we are closer to the rock and can see much more detail in the rock, both in color and form texture.

Reference Photo

The reference photo was taken mid-day, which is pretty intense light for most situations and usually unfavorable.  However, this rock formation has a lot of overhang so much of the formation at this time of day is in shadow, so the interesting streaks and textures are subtle.  There is also interesting glow of reflection on the downward-facing surfaces from the brightly-lit floor.

First Wash

I regard the first was as an opportunity to break the ice with a painting and exaggerate the color.  The sandstone rock of this formation generally reads as orange, so for my first wash I chose to work wet-into-wet with a warm yellow (Indian Yellow in this case, but I also like New Gamboge) and a rose.  I first wet the entire rock formation with clean water and dropped in the yellow and rose, letting them mingle on the paper.  I tended to emphasize yellow in the more sunlit areas and rose in the shadowy areas.

In hindsight, I would have liked to have used stronger concentrations of color at this stage because it required later washes of yellow, rose, and burnt sienna to correct the color.  But it is better to err on the side of being too light because that is easily correctable in watercolor by going in with more layers.

Layers Two and Three - Shadow Shapes

 After the first wash you generally have a choice between working on the shadow shapes or working on the local color and textures.  In the El Capitan painting of my previous post, I chose to layer in the color and textures on the rock face in the second wash then work on the shadow shapes after that.  In this painting, I chose to work on the shadow shapes first, mainly because they were a particularly important part of this painting (I think it's nice to do the important parts first!), and when shadows are so prominent in a composition, painting in the shadows can really make a painting come alive for me earlier in the painting process, which I find exciting and motivating.

In the first layer of shadow shapes I painted in the entire shadow shapes as one, not differentiating between the arches or neighboring walls.  They all received a continuous wash of rose plus ultramarine, not uniformly mixed but allowed to mingle on the paper in their separate components.  I wish I had remembered to take a photograph after Layer Two to show you!

In the third layer I refined the shadow shapes, painting the deeper shadow areas with an ultramarine-heavy mix with rose and drawing out the paint with a clean damp brush to blend it and soften the edges.  Refining the shadow shapes helped to separate out the distant arch and rock wall from the foreground arch.

Layer Four - Glaze in more orange color

I felt I needed more color in the overall rock shapes so I glazed in a very dilute wash of warm yellow, rose, and burnt sienna.  I think this warmed up the rock more.

Final Layers

I still felt I needed more color so I did more glazing of warm yellow (taking special care to the underside of the far arch to include the warm reflection from the sunlit rock below it) and also included glazes of pyrrol orange.  More burnt sienna and rose glazes as well were added.

I also begun to add the streaks of colorful patina in the rock.  I used washes of burnt sienna mixed with indian yellow, rose, and/or dioxazine violet or ultramarine to provide the varying color and value to the streaks.  The brush technique I used was to paint the streak with one brush, loaded with color, then soften and/or draw out the streaks with a second clean damp brush.  If I wanted the streak to stand out more I used more paint and less water; if I wanted the streak to be subtle I would mix in a bit more water.

I also used the same colors for the blotchy shapes on the rock as well.  A bristle brush was helpful for this process at times because that assists in providing natural irregularities.

I also painted the sky in the three visible sections.  In my blue skies I tend to use a total of four blues:  cobalt teal blue, cerulean blue, cobalt blue, and ultramarine, and use them in that order as a gradient from horizon to zenith.  I also love to drop in bits of rose in the upper reaches of the sky to add interest and color.

Rocks in Watercolor: El Capitan Step-By-Step

El Capitan, 8x10" watercolor

I have started teaching a series of classes at The Art Verve Academy here in Tucson about "Features in the Landscape".  In my latest class this fall I cover rocks and mountains.  For the rocks session I decided to demonstrate using two subjects, El Capitan and Double Arch, because these are instances where basically a big rock is the "star" of the composition.  Each rock has interesting color and texture to practice varying painting techniques.

In this blog post I'll demonstrate a step-by-step of the El Capitan painting and in a following post I'll demonstrate the Double Arch process.

El Capitan Reference Photo, cropped to 8x10"

I took the reference photo one morning during a 2011 trip to Yosemite National Park.  As you can see in this light, one face has full direct sun but the contours of the formation create a sizable cast shadow in the middle section.  There are also cast shadows in the main cracks and fissures, providing a bit more texture to the rock face.  For beginners I thought this would be an easier subject to tackle.

First Wash

After tracing the contour lines onto an 8x10" piece of watercolor paper I made the first wash.  I like to use a bit of exaggerated color, wet-into-wet, in my first wash because I believe overall it adds interest to the subject, and the color can always be toned down later in areas as needed for greater realism.  It's a opportunity to break the ice with a new painting and start an artful interpretation of your subject.  Since most of the rock face of El Cap reads as white in the photograph, I decided to let mingle three dilute colors of a primary triad:  azo yellow, quinacridone rose, and cobalt blue.  Where the light was the strongest I emphasized yellow.  In the mid region I tended to drop in rose and places destined for gray I dropped in cobalt blue.

Second and Third Layers

Once the first layer completely dried, I then started laying in earthy yellow streaks using a two-brush technique.  I used Daniel Smith Monte Amiata Natural Sienna on one brush, then soften the edges of the streaks with a second brush that was damp with clean water.  Then I applied the gray streaks using a similar method, this time with a dilute mix of burnt sienna and ultramarine.

One dried, I started applying the shadow shapes using a mix of rose and ultramarine.  In the main shadow swathe I dropped in some sienna as well.

Fourth and Fifth Layers

In the fourth layer I started painting in my foliage at the base of the rock.  For the trees I used mainly a mix of azo green and ultramarine, my new favorite combination for greens lately.  I also dropped in some burnt sienna in places to add a more natural effect.  For painting the foliage I used a "dancing brush" technique to try to get natural leaf cluster shapes and allow an airy quality by leaving some untouched spots.  When the trees were dry enough I painted in the initial wash of the grassy area with the same greens with the addition of my sienna for the dry sunlit grasses.  Wet-into-wet is useful for dealing with the reflections in the water because it provides an effect of vague shapes.

In the fifth layer I refined the tree shapes with  negative painting using darker valued greens.  In some cases I added more ultramarine or Payne's Gray and in others some Quinacridone Violet.  I was aiming for near black in the deeper shadow areas.  To see the darker areas in the foliage I did a lot of squinting at my reference photo.  It takes a bit of intention to override your brain's commands and trust what your squinted eyes see in terms of light and dark values.  I often used my second brush, damp with clean water, to soften edges.  I also refined some of the shadow shapes in the grassy area and the water reflections.

In the fifth layer I also tackled the sky, up to now an unpainted white.  Honestly I thought the plain blue sky in my reference photo looked too ordinary and boring so I decided to take a risk and put in a stormy sky.  One of my favorite situations of light is where your subject is "spot-lit" against a stormy sky because it really illuminates the subject, so I aimed to create that effect with this painting.  I wet the entire sky shape with clear water and started with a gradient of blues (as if I was painting a blue sky) to give a foundation color to the sky.  So at the horizon I dropped in my greener blues (cobalt teal blue and cerulean blue), then going up in zenith my cobalt blue then ultramarine at the top of the paper.  Then I got a little wild and dropped in various concentrations of gray (mixture of burnt sienna and ultramarine), quinacridone violet, dioxazine violet, sienna, Payne's gray, and more ultramarine.  I kept dropping in more color, in some cases gently blending with my brush (but not too much!) until I was satisfied with the results.  As long as your wash has a sheen it's okay to continue to work and drop in more color.  It felt right to emphasize a really dark value next to the right diagonal shape of the rock (with the help of my Payne's Gray), and I think my intuition was telling me to use the dark clouds to help balance the composition.  I'm actually quite pleased with the result and very glad I took the risk.

Final Painting

For the final layer I did some refinements here and there.  Using a tiny brush (size 0) I added some fine streaks of gray to the top of El Cap, and added any streaks, blotches of patina, and cracks that seemed to be missing.  Then for the trees I used my tiny brush with white gouache plus a bit of indian yellow to paint in the lighter-valued tree trunks and their reflections in the water.