Trees and Clouds

11x15 watercolor on Yupo synthetic paper done from one of the landscape photos I posted online for a contest. In this mountain scene, I especially liked the whispering pines behind the taller foreground bare trees. The viewer can imagine tall vistas behind the trees.
COPYRIGHT Kay Smith.

Trees in mixed media

5x7 mixed media collage on book text done a few days ago as part of another wacky challenge presented in a WetCanvas forum.  We were only told to do trees using mixed media, no references or guides of any kind. I chose to make mine imaginary using alcohol ink blots on a brown Wendy's napkin, adhering with matte medium onto a discarded book page.  Trunks and branches were sketched in using Micron 01/03 pens, then filled in with Koh-I-Noor Magic pencils, a colored pencil made up of 3-4 different colors.
Image COPYRIGHT 2017 Kay Smith.

Early Autumn

10.25x9 watercolor on paper done a week ago after spending most of the day traipsing through Lincoln National forest by Bonito Lake, New Mexico.  Signs of early autumn were beginning to be evident with trees losing their leaves and cooler temperatures.  This was not drawn on location however, but an entirely made up scene of aspen trees.  Negative painting done in the middle and far background.  When dry I flicked splatters of dark brown paint to indicate leaves.
Image COPYRIGHT 2016 Kay Smith.

Spring Thaw

8x5.5 watercolor pencils and watercolor on Strathmore Visual Journal for mixed media drawn and painted today.  For our Facebook 20 Birds in 20 Days challenge I added 3 birds in the still cold sky in this small landscape.  This scene is featured on WetCanvas currently as adapted from trees and shadows courtesy Angie.  Bare trees with their skinny shadows crisscross and zigzag along melting snow and emerging green grass for Spring is but a few days away.
Image is COPYRIGHT 2015 Kay Smith.
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White Trees in Snow

7x5 watercolor and white wax crayon resist on 140 lb cold press paper by Langton/Daler Rowney.  I made random vertical lines then negatively painted a few tree shapes leaving the white of the paper for this imaginary landscape.  Some scraping for branches done with brush bevel tip.
Image is COPYRIGHT 2013 Kay Smith.

Aspens Ashimmer - reworked watercolor

22x15 watercolor and gouache on 140 lb cold press paper, my demo for today's workshop class.  Our task was to take an old painting that just didn't look like we wanted, and remake it into something better.  For mine I choose a previous floral that had already been redone but still was lousy.  I turned it vertically and drew aspen outlines using black watersoluble Tombow brush pen, then with white gouache and watercolors, mostly opaques, I painted this scene.  Below you can see the old dog itself.

BEFORE version, titled Poppies and Berries, that had lots of negatively painted leaves and blooms...way too much detail as is my usual habit.

Three Birches palette knife painting

12x8.5 watercolor using only a small palette knife of birches on Strathmore 140 lb cold press paper, done this evening.  I used the knife usually reserved for my oils and scraped and dragged paint up and down until tree shapes were visible; lots of lost edges to blend in with white snow background and foreground.  I was not sure I could do shadows with the knife but those were easy once I wet the horizontal areas with water, then the paint.  Colors used:  Quinacridone burnt orange and gold, carbazole violet, UB, Midnight Blue, raw sienna, transparent pyrrol orange, new gamboge, Peachy Keen, Brown Derby, Coffee with Cream.