More paints

I'm doing a bunch of paintings on small paper. Actually I should call them studies, as none of them are really meant to be finished products. I'm still learning too much. I got out a bunch of watercolour books from the library. Painting your vision in water colour, Watercolor for the serious beginner Capturing Light in watercolor and Painting the seasons in watercolor. They are all moderately useful. I am most interested in their sections on colour choice. I also wanted some decent demonstrations where I could do like a paint-along thing. I think that would be a good way to learn stuff. None of the books have a very decent paint along section - but I found this website. I am definitely going to try some of these. Even just to get the colour list and see what people are using for certain hues. I like what Robert Wade suggested - to do a series of paintings just with cobalt blue, raw sienna and burnt umber, to practice and get better at colour mixing. (Im gonna try that..just wait till I get my hands on some raw sienna, and cobalt...) All these colors are transparent and you can avoid what he calls "the muddies". That's cool. So far my opaque paints are giving many bad cases of "the muddies". but I don't mind it too much. This pic is an example. Yup, muddy it is, but I am digging the more saturated colours. I am even doing complimentary colour (green over red???) washes to dull down the vibrant colours I have, and to unify the picture. And muddiness is there too, but sometimes I kinda dig its heaviness. The yellow I have is a B*#ch. Opaque, way too bright and cant mix with anyone. The best way I have found to use it is as a base coat. Then its pretty cool because it is so gaudy and obnoxious it bumps up all the colours on top if it. It heatens up a painting like nobodies business. Hot I tell you. Hot.

So, this painting is not very pretty, but the simple composition was the inspiration for the next three. I used that basic image of foreground, middle and background to study colours and paints. I like the iconographic tree shape, the shadow and the suggestion of something behind the hill. It evokes fall, nature and anticipation to me. Maybe I'll come back to these ideas. I'm now just playing with colour and shapes... Right now I am not liking how the brown in the corner pops out in front of the yellow "hill". Maybe I'll have to work on that some more...