Japanese Maple - Water Color and Graphite

Expanding Your Artistic Horizons Series

Painting Session 1
Date: 08/30/2017
Subject: Japanese Maple
Medium: Watercolor and Graphite

Recently I came across several paintings that were done with Watercolor and Graphite. I thought this would be fun to try as part of my Expanding Your Artistic Horizons Series. I did a little research online and watched a youtube video of someone doing a landscape with watercolor and graphite. As always I did not spend a lot of time researching because I wanted to get started. I decided to do the painting in my watercolor sketchbook. Not knowing how this would work I did not spend a lot of time sketching the tree.

Graphite Drawing of Japanese Maple

Once I completed the drawing I wondered:

• Did I get enough value transition
• Do I have too much or not enough detail
• Did I use to soft of lead which will muddy the watercolor

Other then a few pages in my watercolor sketchbook I am not experienced at using watercolor. I am sure more knowledge about watercolor and its transparency would help. I went through several iterations of color starting with the lightest color and building up to the darks. 

Watercolor Over Graphite of Japanese Maple

My thoughts on the Completed Painting:

• Did I get enough value transition - Definitely Not, this is partially due to not spending enough time on the drawing. As you can see, some areas are too dark and minimal values in the lighter range. May also be due to not staying more transparent with the watercolor
• Do I have too much or not enough detail - No, in fact not much of the detail I added shows up, my guess I should have stayed more transparent with my color.
• Did I use to soft of lead which will muddy the watercolor? I think the pencils I stayed pretty stable and did not blend with the watercolor. 

It was a fun exercise, but the final product did not turn out the way I wanted. Actually, the final product is not very good. I want to try this again but plan to spend more time on the drawing and choose a subject that will be easier to see the changes in values in the graphite drawing.