Water Under the Bridge by Janice Tingum

Water Under the Bridge

by Janice Tingum

Watercolor on YUPO Synthetic Paper

8" x 10"

Janice Tingum Fine Art

I don't typically use a palette knife when painting with watercolors, but a while ago decided to give it a try on YUPO synthetic paper. A step-by-step demo of this piece follows. 

Materials:

One 9" x 12" sheet of 74 lb. YUPO synthetic paper to paint on One sheet of YUPO paper to use as a palette HB Portfolio Aqua Sketch pencil #4 palette knife #3 white nylon round brush #2 while nylon round brush #2 script brush

Winsor & Newton Artists' Watercolor paints: Permanent Rose, Viridian, Cadmium Orange, Burnt Umber, Aurora Yellow, Cadmium Lemon.

Winsor & Newton Cotman Watercolor paints:  Hooker's Green Dark, Intense Blue (Phthalo Blue), Rose Madder Hue, Chinese White.

This method of painting uses very little water. In the most intense areas of color, no water was added to the paint. Thus, the paint dries quickly, both on the painting and on the palette. Therefore, don't squeeze out too much paint at one time. It's better to add fresh paint from the tube as you go along.  Although the paint dried quickly in this painting, I noticed that some colors, especially the tree leaves, remained tacky to the touch even a day later. 

I drew the image on the YUPO paper with an Aqua Sketch pencil. On the other sheet of YUPO paper (the palette), I squeezed out portions of Permanent Rose, Hooker's Green Dark and Intense Blue (Phthalo Blue). The amount I squeezed out of each tube to begin with was about the size of an eraser on the end of a pencil. As I painted, I added to the paint portions as necessary. 

Using a palette knife, I mixed these three colors to create a dark color.  I did not use any water at this stage.  Treating the paint like oil or acrylic paints, I used the bottom side of the palette knife to pick up some of the mixed paint and spread it like butter onto my painting. I carefully filled in the darkest areas under the bridge this way. 

Painting the dark area under the bridge and the darkest part of the water:

When I reached the area where the water is more transparent, I dipped the palette knife in water and slightly diluted the paint with it. This caused the paint to spread more thinly on the paper, exposing the blends of blue, green and red. 

With a #3 paintbrush, I painted the tree trunks using long strokes of burnt umber, varied with touches of yellow, orange and blue. I used the script brush to paint the smaller tree branches.  I also used a diluted mixture of the blue to sketch in a few distant tree branches above the bridge.

For the first tree leaves, I dipped the bottom side of the palette knife tip into the Aurora Yellow paint and dabbed the paint onto the painting.  I repeated this process with the Cadmium Yellow and the Cadmium Orange. For the light green color, I mixed up a small amount of the Hooker's Green Dark with Aurora Yellow on the palette.

Close-up of the tree trunks and leaves:

The white cement areas of the bridge were subtly toned with diluted blue and diluted red paint. The bricks on the bridge were painted in part with a brush and in part with the palette knife, varying the colors from brick to brick. I used the Permanent Rose, Cadmium Orange, Burnt Umber, Cadmium Yellow, Aurora Yellow, as well as leftovers of the dark water paint mixture, to build the bricks. I painted the bricks in light values first, and then darkened the bricks as I proceeded until it reached a value that matched the tree trunks. The shadow lines between bricks and the outlining around the cement portions of the bridge were painted with the script brush using the dark water color (blue plus green plus perm. rose).

Because of the thickness of the undiluted tube paints, I could dab on yellow and orange leaves directly over the brick colors.

Close-up of bridge:

The foreground leaves on the left were painted with a palette knife similar to the leaves in the trees. I applied strokes of Burnt Umber for the earth color. The pinkish leaves were created by mixing Chinese White with Rose Madder Hue. Because the white paint was not smooth and soft like the colored paints, I needed to add a little water to this mixture to bring it to a spreading texture. 

I diluted the blue paint with a little water to create a more transparent color for the right foreground. I applied the paint loosely with the #3 brush, intentionally leaving white areas to suggest action in the water.

The rocks were painted with diluted purples (blue and red mix) and burnt umber. I lightly blotted the wet paint on the rocks with a tissue to provide textural effects.  After that had dried, I re-evaluated the rocks and used a damp #2 brush to lift paint from brightest sun-lit areas of the rocks. I also lifted off paint in the water where it hit the front of the rocks.  The nice thing about YUPO paper is the ability to wipe off watercolor paint, even thick dry paint, to get back to the original white of the paper.

Close-up of rocks:

I made a few touch-ups, dropping leaves into the water, adding the scenery on the other side of the bridge as seen through the arch, and signed the painting.

The leftover paint on my palette dried fast. Once dried, it would no longer be usable for the thick palette knife painting technique, but could still be sprayed with water and used for brushwork in other watercolor painting projects. 

The one problem I encountered with this painting was some bubbling on the back side of the YUPO synthetic paper. It didn't bubble while I was painting, but I noticed it some time later. I'm not sure if it was due to environmental conditions, such as temperature changes, or due to the paint. Here's an image of a portion of the back side of the paper:

I have done a considerable amount of painting on YUPO synthetic paper, both with watercolors and acrylics, and this is the only piece where I've noticed this effect. When the painting is matted and framed under glass, the bubbling on the back is not noticeable, but I wanted you to be aware that this could happen. A heavier weight of paper might work better.

If you are interested in more painting experiments using watermedia and YUPO synthetic paper, check out my ebook, Creating Texture with Watercolor & YUPO Synthetic Paper.