Panoramic Penguin Watercolor Painting – The Study

Today was time to get back to the penguin watercolor painting. I had a piece of paper ready cut but it had curled too much to paint on. So while I was waiting for it to flatten out overnight I used the offcut to do a quarter size test study. This is 6″x17″ and the final thing will be 32″x11/5″ which will be a pretty big scale up.

I’d done some sketching out of the composition on the ipad a couple of nights ago and was pretty happy. Everything is out of my head and from experience of previous paintings. I’m still wondering whether a few extra penguins will make their way in there but it hangs together pretty well so far.

penguin ipad study by Michele Clamp
penguin ipad study by Michele Clamp

First the drawing.

penguin drawing
Penguin drawing

Looks ok so far. The shapes are good. There’s lots of overlapping shapes and the background cliffs tie everything together horizontally.

Now into the painting.

penguin watercolor painting first stage
Penguin painting first stage

The sky went in ok. I was thinking of maybe masking the cliffs but in the end it wasn’t an issue. The darks of the penguins look good. Not a lot of detail here. All the work is being done by the shapes.

penguin watercolor painting second stage
Penguin painting second stage

I’m pretty far along here. Everything went pretty straightforwardly. Just goes to show what a bit of planning can do. I’m still wondering whether to add in a couple more penguins on the right. And those two wings in the center two penguins are a little too similar so that might change.

And the final thing

penguin watercolor painting final
Penguin watercolor painting – final

How fast can you paint a watercolor?

Sometimes Painting Fast is Better

How fast can you paint a watercolor? I had 30 minutes before the Newton Watercolor Society zoom call and a bridge scene to paint. The picture above had about an hour longer but I got a lot of the main areas in in 30 minutes. Brushes were flying and there was no time for detail or hanging about. To be honest it looked pretty good before I started noodling with it. As always the jury is out on this one until later.

But Don’t Forget the Basics

Edit: It’s a day later and I’m still on the fence. The drawing is a little dodgy (make those verticals vertical!) and the value pattern isn’t quite as well defined as I wanted. The color is good – I like the blue of the sky which works well with the sandy brick and the maroonish shadows. I think it needs another attempt.

Scaling Up a Watercolor

I’m thinking it could benefit from being larger. The composition is strong – hard not to be with that bridge. I struggle with larger paintings but no time like the present to get better. I find scaling up watercolors hard. Watercolor on paper behaves the same whether you’re working large or small. It blends and spreads on the paper similarly whether you’re on a 5×7 or a 22×30. Just using a bigger brush (although it helps) doesn’t make the paint behave differently.

One I did a while back was a detail of a Vermont farm

Vermont farm Michele Clamp watercolor painting
Vermont farm Michele Clamp watercolor painting

This is 16″x20″ which doesn’t sound that much large but I had to work a lot more interest into the paint than I would have done at a smaller size. I kind of like it but it’s not one of my favorites. Looks good on the wall though.

Michele Clamp Studio Wall
Michele Clamp Studio Wall

Landscape Demo Video

Due to time constraints I didn’t video this painting. However if anyone is interested in my process I have a number of real-time demo landscape videos on my youtube channel. A nice example is this one of a late afternoon English cornfield after harvest.