The Orange Tree - Watercolour

The Orange Tree © Kate Lomax 2018 All Rights Reserved

The Orange Tree, is, unusually for me, a watercolour work.   It is really another sketch study, a move on from my sketch of last blog.   

My next step was to think about the elements I had visited in the first sketch and decide which I wanted to adopt for my next step.  I gaze at my fruit trees frequently.  When I am looking at the fruit, waiting for it to ripen, I think about what I am going to do with it.  I always use all of the fruit.  The peel, the zest, the flesh and the juice.  I so wished to convey this in my painting.  It isn't just about fruit, it is about juice, marmalade, candied peel, oranges preserved in brandy, orange blossom oil, among hundreds of by-products that originate from the humble orange.     In any study, we must always consider where the object, in this instance, a tree came to be. 

Key elements decided, I then need to to consider composition, working with a charcoal sketch.

I always use light grey charcoal for sketching.  The charcoal will melt away and merge with your medium once moisture is introduced.  It is a far more paint friendly than pencil. 

When working with watercolour, you must decide how you are going to approach. Wet on wet?  Dry brushing?  A bit of both?  I chose to apply my outlines to dry paper, then gently flood the locked in areas, taking great care not to introduce water to my outlines.  I then allowed the base colours to dry completely before adding more colour very, very carefully.  Building shape and form as I progressed. In normal practice, I would start with the background.  However, with this work, my decision on colour choice, came at the end.   I couldn't decide between yellow or lime green. Only by completing the work in the main, could I confidently make the right choice.  

The reason I chose yellow is quite an elementary one.  Each of the colours featured would be enhanced by the yellow surround.  Lime green may have dumbed down the little green in the painting, and possibly have given the orange the illusion of leaning toward a brown tone.  Whereas the yellow would compliment, lift  and add to the vibrance of the orange and green hues.  The wildcard was the turquoise that was to sit in the upper areas of the tree.  Because of the green tone of turquoise, it would intensify the green in the proposed lime hue.  Had I used french ultramarine instead of turquoise, lime would have worked, both would have complimented the orange.  However, turquoise is always my favourite blue as it works with almost everything, because the pigment is blue/green.  So yellow won the day! 

The yellow background was mixed in two batches.  Very intense, for around the outside edges of the work, and a finer mix for around the tree, which I applied with several brushes in a scrubbing motion to achieve a relaxed and uneven cover.  I opted for this method of application to soften the formality of the tree arrangement, shown here prior to the addition of the colour wash. I could have sprayed moisture on then dropped the water colour pigment into the water for an even more random effect.  However, if you do this, make a good mask from acetate to protect the completed part of your painting.

When composing a water colour painting.  Plan through to the finish line.  Give yourself set options if you are not sure.  I would advise against 'going with the flow', as once you have committed water colour paint to paper, you are more or less stuck either with the colour, or a long drawn out removal process if you decide that the colour choice is wrong. Always use a colour wheel to study your options.  However, I prefer to take my proposed water colour hues and just make your own colour wheel, using the colours that will make up your work.  Tone is vital. One dull tone can kill a painting full of brights.  Even dark colours can be vibrant...  My tree trunk has orange and emerald dropped into it to lift the blander raw  umber of the trunk.   Subtle colour drops will lift dark and dull hues without changing the colour.

The important thing is not to be afraid of water colours.  There is much fun to be had, lots of experimenting to be done, and many sketches to paint in your planning of larger works in your journey as an artist.  Have fun!