Late Summer Days: Landscape on Yupo

Late Summer Days, watercolor on yupo synthetic paper, 20x26 inches

This is another piece on yupo, the second one I did. It started with a technique learned from Mark Mehaffey: I applied Winsor red, cadmium yellow and cerulean blue almost straight off the tube, diluted with very little water, and allowed the colors to merge and move on the surface of the yupo. After letting the mixture dry overnight, I chose a scene to "carve out" of that background by lifting pigment back to white, and layering other colors.

The green color was lifted partially to reveal the sky and negatively shape the tree masses. The white barn was lifted completely to white, with a brush wet with clear water. The silo was given a rough texture by applying multiple layers of color. Watercolor pencils were used to add random lines for texture and variety.

The detail below gives a better view of the main shapes and the techniques used and textures achieved. You can click on the image to view and even larger version.

Late Summer Days, detail

It was very exciting to work with the loose characteristic of yupo and still try to impose some measure of control in the creation of shapes and details!