Watercolor Process - Stream in the Woods

Watercolor Process - Stream in the Woods

Today I am sharing how I painted this Stream in the Woods watercolor painting.
This painting was inspired by a backpacking trip. We were out in Oil Creek State Park, Pennsylvania hiking the Gerard trail. We were on a three day trip and the first day was all rain and cold. Though the weather was not great that first day there were some really pretty sights off the trail. It was mostly just a woods trail but just off the trail and sometimes running right through it there were these really pretty small creeks and streams that all had water through them because of the rain. What I really loved about them was that there were these big rocks in them that were covered in a bright green moss. It was a welcome pretty sight as we were trudging through the mud. Thankfully the weather let up right when we got to our campsite and there was a pretty sunset through the trees. 
This painting has a combination of watercolor paints and black ink. When I am doing a watercolor painting/pen-work combination I start out by drawing the line work with my pen. I use this Pentel Brush Pen which is not water based so there is no issue with the ink bleeding when it gets wet by the painting process.
I use this 140lb watercolor paper and I tape it down to my Painting Board so that it doesn't warp.
ink drawing
Here's the page after a couple layers of paint. You can see I've done a light wash over the whole thing and I've started to add details to the rocks.
first layer of paint
A little detail.
mid process
It was a beautiful day for painting in the studio.
studio desk with art in progress
This is after several layers of painting, building up colors and textures throughout the scene. Certain parts are starting to come to life while others still look nearly untouched. It's really cool to see the layers come to life.
first layers of paint
It takes so many layers of paint to get this far. Each part of the painting I've labored over and considered whether it needed more or whether I'd over-done it. I have a hard time with decision-making and I often don't know when to call it quits on a painting. I thought I was done with this one and left it alone for a couple days, then went back and gave some more depth and color to the leaves. 
adding some finishing touches with white ink
This is where I left it for a couple days.
Here's the finished painting. I added some more color and also some white ink to some spots of the painting. I used this Winsor and Newton Calligraphy Ink for the white accents.
finished painting
I hope you've enjoyed seeing the process of this painting. If you'd like links to all my favorite supplies check out my Kit page here where I list all the art supplies and products that I love and use on a regular basis.
You can find the original painting here
And prints of this artwork are available here

Kimberlee Everhard is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program as well as the Blick Art Materials affiliate program, both are affiliate advertising programs designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com and dickblick.com.

 

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