Warming Up

Sometimes, when it's been awhile since I painted, I need a warm-up exercise.  Yesterday and today I'm playing with blue hues to capture a memory of the trip we took up the Inside Passage of Alaska this past summer. Hopefully, this'll get me in the groove and ready to get out the big sheets of paper.

Watercolor painting lends itself to getting other jobs done while the washes dry; so yesterday was baking day, too.

I decided to give the paper a light wash of Yellow Ochre to help me capture the twilight mood I wanted.

Getting the clouds in; some soft and some hard edges.  Not sure if I like some of the hard edges, but that's easily fixed when I get close to the end.

I'm using Cerulean, Pthalo and Indigo blues with a tiny touch of Alizarin for the clouds. This is where I left off last night.

This is a no-pressure piece, fun, light and simple- the perfect combination to get me in the swing of being in the studio again.