Painting in Progress: What is on the Easel at the studio of JoAnn PippinDo you know that many artists consider watercolor the most difficult media to work with? Have these paintings have inspired you to try it, regardless of the trials and tribulations it presents? If you stop by my easel where my latest original painting is developing, you may learn why I particularly love watercolor, and also get a few hints about painting. Latest Painting A family wanted a special present for their mother, who was going to have her 86th birthday. For years the whole family has met and had fun together at their cottage on Lake Sunapee, but during the winter they are scattered all over New England. The mother lives in a condo in Massachusetts. One of the sons saw my Lake Sunapee boathouse paintings at the Harbor Gallery in Sunapee, and thought that it would be a wonderful thing for his mother to have a painting of the view of the lake that they have from their cottage. He and his siblings decided to share the cost, and they contacted me with their ideas. They had some photographs, but they were the wrong season, the wrong weather, the wrong time of day. The mother really loved the Loon Island Lighthouse and Mount Sunapee, and wanted a nice summer scene with blue skies. Some of the family members ski and sail, so the prominence of the ski trails on the mountain and the presence of boats became important. I enjoyed working with this group because they understood that one of the values of a painting is the interpretation of the subject. Using creativity and the techniques of their medium, artists can emphasize the important characteristics of a subject--what has special meaning for the client in the case of a commissioned painting. So, over a period of time, this painting developed as shown the stages below. I made 3 pencil sketches. They helped us to figure out what needed to be emphasized, and where the dark and light values would be placed in the painting. This is the final sketch. Since the mountain and the lighthouse were equally important, I thought about the way the eye would travel through the painting. Obviously, your eyes would go to the lighthouse, as it would be white against a darker background. But the mountain was to be equally important, so the eye needs to go there too. I put white clouds behind the highest peak of the mountain, because the eye is usually drawn to a place where the lightest light and the darkest dark meet. I mapped out the mountains, drew in the Loon Island Lighthouse, and the sailboats. Since I wanted the water to swirl around the lighthouse and the sails smoothly, I used masking fluid and tape to save these whites when I began the washes. Most of my paintings are not done on stark white paper, but on a light wash of the three basic colors I have chosen to use. Since watercolor is transparent and allows you to look through the current layer to previous layers, covering the paper with this initial wash can have a unifying effect on the final painting. I did the initial washes, using a very light yellow, then pink, then couple of cerulean blue washes. I blot out the clouds with tissues. It seemed most important to establish that light/dark area where the peak of the mountain meets the sky, so I decided to paint the mountain and the hills below first. I wet the paper, then I mixed colors wet-in-wet on the paper to create the light and dark colors on the mountains, being careful to lift or preserve the places where the trails run. After that dried, I went back in and added some detail and darkness where needed in the foreground hills. Leaving the mountain to adjust later when I could see the contrast in other parts of the painting, I began to focus on the lighthouse. Since its whiteness is emphasized by the blue around it, I needed to first work with the Lake Sunapee water, which needed to reflect the sky and have waves, indicating that the sailboats had wind to sail with. The water reflects the sky, which is light at the bottom and dark at the top, so the water needed to be light at the top and dark at the bottom. When I was satisfied with the water, I could remove the masking fluid and work on the details of the lighthouse and the sailboats. 
Final Touches So, I was down to the final touches. I put the painting in a place where I could look at it several times a day, and gave myself 4 days to look at it and think about what was needed. Where darks needed to be emphasized, where lights needed to be lifted, what needed to be softened, and what needed more detail were my concerns. When I felt I had a good plan, it was time to do the last session of painting. Here is the final painting! 
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