Color Experiments: Anatomy of a Series, Part 1

One of my artistic goals lately has been to paint my landscapes using colors from my hand-dyed yarns.   It's been a great way to think about things differently and to punch up a ho-hum landscape.

Plus, it's been so much fun using colors that I've been using in my dye shop for decades in a whole new way.

Here is my photo inspiration - A local pond off the highway.  Now remember, I am in no way trying to paint a photorealistic copy of the reference photo.   That's what photographs are for.   I'm going to try to paint that landscape in a new way.

Here is my yarn inspiration:

This is my fine bamboo yarn in the colorway, Vineyard.   I've been wanting to use these colors in a landscape for a while.   

The first thing I did was paint the reference pretty close to what's actually there.   I like to really focus on the lights and darks and large shapes.   

© Robin Edmundson, 'Solsberry Pond #1', watercolor, 10 x 14 inches, unframed. 

In the next draft, I softened out some of the colors and played with the shapes, still trying to get a feel for the light and composition.  That's a lot of foreground, so I shortened it up a bit.

© Robin Edmundson, 'Solsberry Pond #2', watercolor, 10 x 14 inches, unframed.

Not a bad start.   In the next post, I'll show you #3 and #4, with the colors from the yarn.  

Red Barn on Pond

This barn lives on the road to Freedom, Indiana.  I've been practicing skies that aren't blue and practicing painting sunshine.  They're interesting.

I need a lot more practice, but I liked the peaceful feeling here.

Another Fall Color Post

These small ponds are right outside Tulip in Greene County, Indiana.    During the summer, they are often covered with green algae, so it's really nice to see them after a few frosts kill back the algae.  

These tiny ponds sparkle next to the trees this time of year. 

Very Shy Ducks

Down the way from us is a beaver pond.   With beavers and everything.  And a ginormous swamp rose that's maybe 1/2 acre all by itself. 

It's totally totally cool.Totally.

We noticed that this year there are at least two pairs of ducks there - a pair of wood ducks and a pair of mallards.   Both are pretty nice looking ducks.

The wood ducks like to nest in trees and I'm betting that this tree is where they're nesting. Click the pic to biggify it.  I see two holes, so maybe there's another pair?

Whenever we get remotely within sight, they take off to the back area of the wetland. I'm hoping that I'll eventually get a pic of one.   I'd be over the moon if I could catch a pic of the ducklings.