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Sunday, December 20, 2009

Watercolor Landscape :: The Chase



The Chase
Watercolor on Arches 140-lb CP paper
8" x 10" (20 x 25 cm)
©2009 Steve Penberthy

This painting is of the south-facing side of the Chase Park Plaza hotel in St. Louis. This particular view is looking up from the hotel valet area that fronts Kingshighway. I chose a thin wash of pthalo blue to represent the cold winter sky and juxtaposed that with the warm morning sunlight hitting the building. The building is a verigated wash of raw sienna and new gamboge, dulled with a second wash of violet. The painting really came together for me as I added the tree limbs, which I believe helped give the building context. The bare limbs looked a little *too* bare for my tastes, so I added spatters of paint to represent dead leaves that had not yet fallen; these spatters were done using burnt sienna and quinacridone red.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Cake and Fire



Cake and Fire
Watercolor on Strathmore Gemini 140-lb CP paper
8" x 8" (20 x 20 cm)
© 2009 Steve Penberthy

This painting presented me with several challenges, most notably how to correctly render the light.  I first did a pencil sketch, then made a photocopy of it.  It was on the photocopy that I did the pencil drawing below, primarily to test if I captured the likeness or not, but also how the shading was going to work.  It was in the pencil drawing where I worked out solutions to the problems I was going to face in the painting; I sort of "painted" with the pencil to understand what I needed to do later on.  Lesson learned:  It's always tempting to just jump in and start splashing paint around, but a little work up front makes the job easier down the line.


"Cake and Fire"
No. 2 pencil on copier paper
8" x 8" (20 x 20 cm)
© 2009 Steve Penberthy