Painting For Publishing For A New Art Book
I was invited by a publishing company Linea Editorial, which is located in Barcelona, Spain; to participate in a new book called One Watercolor Every Day. Their creative team selected my painting Spring In The Mountains. This artwork depicts an old blooming tree against the endless blue sky with mountains and birds in the background. It is a symbol of the beginning: a new life, a free spirit and eternal wisdom.
I am so happy to be a part of the book that will be published in 2017. It will contain more than 100 artists throughout the World. What an honor! I am very very pleased :)
I wanted to tell a little more about how I created this painting.
The story of the creation of this artwork is quite interesting. One year, I was invited to teach the class at Disney Family Museum in San Francisco. The main idea of the lesson was to explore wet-on-wet technique. My first impulse was to teach the students how to paint sky. The subject with the blue sky and the tree just popped in my head. The lesson that I was giving in San Francisco was a great success. Art students enjoyed very much to learn a new skill.
Later on, this artwork was selected by jury of the artists for the art show called Feeling Blue that took place in Naperville, IL Art Gallery.
I have used two different techniques to achieve the desired results. Most of the painting is completed in watercolors; but, I used wax in order to reserve the whites of the flowers and the tree bark. Usually, I use masking liquid, but this time I wanted to make something that does not have to dry slow (as my student would not have so much time at the lesson). Then I employed a wet-on-wet technique mixing phthalo blue with a little bit of ultramarine. When the paper, 140 lb Cold Pressed Arches, was dry, I painted the tree with ultramarine blue right out of Winsor&Newton tube, and added black watercolor for the contrast. The blossoms of the tree, the mountains, and the birds were painted by using a dry-on-dry technique where a minimal amount of paint is applied to the dry paper with gentle brush strokes; and, where the artist has full control of building up an intensity of the painted subject.
My Spring In The Mountains painting is truly going to travel a lot next year, now in the form of the publication in the art book.
How many wonderful surprises are still there for my art?!
I am so excited :)
