Moonrise Reprise...the Process

Last summer, I painted "Moonrise", an 8"x10" watercolor that subsequently sold out of a juried exhibit I had entered it into. I'm glad that it sold but would have been equally happy to have kept that one around for awhile. It was one of those rare paintings where I felt everything clicked - the composition, colors, values, shapes and overall impact. It's a good one.

For the second process painting to be included in "The Process is the Practice" show at Ti Arts Downtown Gallery, I decided to recreate the smaller, successful work into a much larger piece, to take what I'd learned with the smaller one and try to transfer those pivotal points of painting epiphany into a 20"x28" scaled up version.

I painted three studies on watercolor board to prep for the larger piece: one small 5"x7" composition and color study and two 8"x10" studies of different elements in the painting, also on watercolor board. I added line work in fine line pen to one of the 8"x10", trying out the technique I occasionally use in my paintings.

Then I moved on to the 20"x28" large painting. The results were not what I expected.  I ended up making several adjustments along the way.

The two big things I changed in the large painting:

I felt the color shapes were too blocky and uniform, the fun watercolor marks I usually get were indistinct, so I decided to add line work in concentrated transparent watercolor applied with quill pens to add texture and some definition.

As a large painting, the original composition just didn't work and I didn't love how the tree on the far left side weighed down the piece, so I cropped it (gasp!). That's right, I chopped off 4 inches from the left side and 2" inches from the bottom, turning it into an 18"x24" painting.

Things I learned:

Substrate really matters. It's impossible to achieve the same effects in watercolor if you're painting on two different surfaces. Even if both are hot press surfaces, if they're two different brands and one is a large watercolor board and the first work was painted on what I usually paint on (140lb hotpress Fabriano watercolor paper in traditional white), results vary greatly.

Changing the size can change the impact of the composition. A larger space to look at changes the way your eyes move around the painting, as opposed to a small compact piece that reduces the energy required to take in the whole scene.

Mark making or brush strokes vary greatly between small and large paintings. The smaller painting had an immediacy to its brush strokes, more quickly done and blended on the paper. And I painted it without overthinking or overworking; it was completed within 4-5 hours. Even though I used large brushes, attempting to recreate the impressionistic style and sublime quality of the small painting with the larger work did not translate into the same spontaneous mark making. 

The large work, although reminiscent of the smaller one, is an entirely different painting in terms of mood, energy and texture, Working through the process of getting it to completion was a journey that took me way out of my comfort zone; end results were not what I expected or initially aimed for. I need to look at it as an entirely separate painting and not compare it with the first one.