The Wrong Kind Of Snow

After all that fun yesterday with the tundra supergranulators, I was ready to give them another go today, with another snowy mountain scene but one with a big difference. I’ll save the revelation if the difference until the end but I think most people will spot what I’ve done straight away.

I started with a source photo and put it through the Notanizer app to convert it to just two values. I pencilled in the outlines of all the highlights on the paper, moving the image downwards so that there was lots of room for a sky. I masked out all the highlights and spattered on some masking fluid just for fun.

Then I added the colour. I used four of the tundra supergranulators today: the blue, the pink, the orange and the green. So no tundra purple today. For the sky, I stuck with the blue, the pink and the orange. I didn’t get any bright areas with the sun shining through the clouds today, so dabbed off paint in a few places with a paper towel to get a bit of white showing.

Then it was on to the hills. I used all four colours here and somehow ended up with much darker values than yesterday. I sprinkled on salt to try to get some texture and dabbed with a towel to try to lighten the colours. Two techniques that don’t work together; I really should have tried one and not the other.

After the making fluid came off, I thought the white areas were looking a bit too big and flat coloured, so I added some very watery tundra blue in places (with a little advice from the Notanizer app) and ended up with white snowy areas with the odd grey shadowy bit. And that’s where I stopped.

And, let me tell you, I’m very happy with the result. It’s up for sale, with the price to be found here, with other watercolour landscapes. The sky and the hillsides are both darker than I’d ideally have wanted but the secret within the painting is coming through loud and clear and that’s far more important than whether the hillsides look rocky or snowy.

SPOILER WARNING!

If you’ve not worked it out, my source photo for this one wasn’t a landscape. It was a portrait of author and fellow Christ’s boy C. P. Snow. Turn the painting ninety degrees clockwise and there he is. Once you’ve seen him, you can’t unsee him. Maybe it’s because I know he’s there that there’s a bit of me wondering whether he’s too obvious and he’s not subtle enough. Still happy with this one though.