From Field Sketch to a HUGE Watercolor Painting

Notes and behind-the-scenes insights on the thoughts, materials, and processes that I use to turn a small field sketch into a much larger painting!

I had 30 minutes to paint. I could have stayed here all day, with sunshine, green alpine meadows, and craggy peaks in the Olympics rendering the horizon into a jagged line. It was late the afternoon, however, and we had miles to hike to get back to camp and a fair bit of off trail navigation to get us there. So, I made the most of my all-too-short 30 minutes to sketch the prominent peak of Mount Anderson. It dominated the skyline and swaths of deep blue shadow reached down the steep snowfields, and I knew I wanted to paint this scene as large as I could someday.

In my field sketch, it was the peak and its incredible shadows that I found the most captivating. They became the focus of the quick painting as I tried to convey the feeling of seeing that view. I accentuated the deep blues and the shape of the mountain, faded out the bright greens, and ignored most of the copious trees.

While having so little time can feel a bit stressful, I think it also forces me to work intuitively and helps me explore the feeling of the place more than the exact details of the landscape that I can get bogged down in when I have no time limit. In this case, I immediately loved the quick sketch and how, by simplifying everything around the mountain, it made the peak the heart of the scene.

As soon as the painting was dry, I tucked it carefully into my pack, ate a quick snack, and began hiking again with a huge smile on my face. Stopping to sketch isn’t always convenient and sometimes is really intimidating. But, these sketches are precious. They embody my experience of a place, hold so many memories, and are critical elements of my painting process once I’m back in the studio.

In this blog post, I share a little of the behind-the-scenes thoughts, materials, and processes that I use to turn a small field sketch into a much larger painting! You can also see a short 1 min video showing snippets from the painting process here.

Reference Field Sketch & Photos

For most of my studio work I rely on high quality reference images that I take on my trips. Sometimes, however, I am lucky to have a field sketch like the one made in the Olympics that already nailed the colors, composition, and feeling that I wanted. When this happens, I have the sketch propped beside my big painting and try to look at it more than photos. In this situation, the photographs are backups that have the extra information I need to enlarge the sketch and add in the higher level of detail appropriate for a larger painting. 

In this piece, I also did a few additional sketches in the studio trying out different colors and views of the peak. These experiments only solidified my choice to stay true to the original field sketch (easier said than done), so I always tried to look at it first before I looked at the photo!

Materials for Bigger Paintings

The large painting is nearly a full sheet – 30x20 inches. At this big size, my materials shift to match the larger surface area. In the small sketch that was a little over 5x7 inches, I used my typical setup (Art Toolkit Folio Palette, a #10 round, a #6 round because my #10 was too old, and a piece of arches 140lb paper.

When sizing up, the first thing that changes is the paper size. I chose to use 140 lb instead of 300 lb because I knew this painting had one really hard part – the sky. I wanted a super subtle gradient and very delicate wash of color which is hard to achieve at this large size. Knowing there was a high probability of needing to start over, I opted for the cheaper paper. And, sure enough, the first attempt at the sky went wildly sideways when I angled my brush wrong and it scratched the paper.

Other materials

• Large 2 inch sumi ink brush- I LOVE this wash brush so much. It holds so much paint and water. BUT do be careful that the bristles bend really easily (I believe they are wool), so it is easy to accidentally nick and scratch the paper with the wooden handle, which often ruins a painting. So, I have to be careful to keep the brush evenly parallel to the paper when applying water and washes.

• For the mountain and trees I used my trusty #10 synthetic round brush by Grumbacher. It holds plenty of paint, and the precise tip gives me plenty of flexibility for lines.

• For snow and grass areas I used a ½ inch round sumi ink brush. It skips across the page beautifully, which is what I wanted for some of the snow effects.

• Paints- Instead of the dry pans in my field kit, I now use paint right out of the tubes. This allows me to make much larger puddles of paint, and to get super saturated colors quickly. I use all Daniel Smith watercolors.

• Palette- I also size up dramatically here. Because I already know my colors, I squeeze them directly into a porcelain palette (about 8x11 inches) with square wells of different sizes. The one in the photo above is no longer in production, but here is a link for an alternate that I tested for the last few weeks and like!

• Pencil and eraser stay the same (07 mechanical pencil)

• Paper towels- for a big painting I have 3-4 of my reusable blue shop towels on hand to handle the higher volume of water on my brushes.

  
  

I also rely heavily on scraps of paper to test my colors!

Making a Mental Map of the Process

For me, smaller paintings take less time, so I sometimes can dive in without a mental map of how the painting will proceed. I’m not worried about making a catastrophic mess because the materials and time investment are so much lower.

In a large painting like this, one, however, I know there will be areas that are more committing, challenging, or delicate, and I want to avoid being near the end and making a mistake that detracts from my painting goal. So, using the field sketch, the pencil sketch, and my prior experiences with scenes like this, I’ll make a map in my mind of how I will create the painting, and try to anticipate and plan for the areas that will be the hardest.

For this painting, the thought process looked like this:

• Paint the sky first –this is a really committing part of the painting because it covers such a huge area, and because the subtle colors will reveal any faults in the paint application and drying, as I found in the field sketch. I plan to apply a clean water layer first to help encourage even paint dispersion, and work quickly to avoid areas of differential drying. Goal is to avoid having to do a second layer of paint.

• Paint the shadows. The shadows are the backbone of my painting, especially the ones in the focal points. It is critical that these core shadows are shaped correctly. Make sure I have faint pencil lines in these areas to guide me so I don’t make the shadows too large. I want some blooming but not crazy fractal patterns, so I must work fast and with a fair bit of water and pigment. In areas where trees will overlap the shadows, I can paint more loosely and quickly.

• Rocks- Some of these will be easy (the areas overlapped by trees and on the lower part of the mountain) because I don’t need as much detail. In the heart of the painting – the middle of the peak to the top ridgelines – I will need high contrast and precise lines, so I know I’ll slow down my pace here. I also want some subtle but critical color and value shifts in the very summit of the peak. These changes in color mixture are what will create the sense of depth in the mountain, and the main focal point. Use more paint to keep edges from hardening, and test any remixing of colors to make sure it matches.

• Snow – less stressful, as I am building this incrementally. Start light and darken with very thin transparent layers. Don’t get too excited and make it too dark.

• Grassy areas- I don’t want to paint these twice because I will lose luminosity and the patterning will be too heavy. Dial in subtle color based on sketch, and commit. Work wet-in-wet, which will give me some flexibility to darken or increase saturation.

• Trees – I know I will get tired of painting these, so start with some on the edge to practice, then move to the most important ones. Then do the others, where I don’t have to pay as much attention.

  
  

I visualize and think through this whole process in my head before I start. I’ve come to see this as a critical part of my painting practice, especially because I work in so few layers which requires a lot of speed and commitment each time I put my brush to the page.

This mental map-making also serves me well when I am creating outside, because I try to do the same thing (albeit on a more simple scale) with each field painting. I want to know where my potential potholes are ahead of time, so I can try to find ways to make it easier, avoid it altogether, or know I need to get it over with before I lose the courage to try.

I also feel like having this map helps me go into a painting with more confidence and to balance flow with precision. It also gives me a foundation to work from, so when I need to adjust my plan on the fly as the painting evolves and the pigment invariably does something unexpected, I can focus on troubleshooting that one step instead of being distracted by the whole future of the piece. It is much easier and less stressful to adapt an existing plan than to have to shift on the fly every few minutes in a painting.

Lastly, this may seem like a lot of words and a super structured thing, but with practice these “maps” develop very quickly, especially if we take the time to make a study sketch beforehand.

Brush Strokes & Pigment Amounts

One of my favorite things about working larger is that every single brush stroke matters less than it does in a smaller painting. For example, in the original small sketch, every line in the rocky patterns was rather critical for conveying the shape of a cliff or contour of a ridge. In the larger painting, however, a brush stroke of the same size makes very little difference on its own (with the exception of a few key places like the mountain silhouette).

While it can take a bit of getting used to, working large feels so freeing because I can let my paintbrush dance across the page a bit more, especially once I have the more committing edges of the peaks done.

For my style of painting – where I apply bold layers and and utilize a lot of blooming (instead of building up a painting in many, many layers)– I have to work quickly and somewhat methodically. When painting things like rocks, my friends liken me to a typewriter because I will start in one spot and then move out from that following the contours of the landscape and that layer of paint.

I also use a fair bit of paint on the brush. If I want the amazing blooms to form in rocks and shadows, then I have to maintain somewhat even wetness across a large shape. To do that, I pre-mix a large puddle of paint in my palette, and then scoop up a lot of this pigment into the brush. I’m not shy about squishing the brush around in the palette. When I reload in the middle of a shape, I also am careful to touch that laden brush to the already wet edge which siphons a bit of the paint off. Then I can slide/ pull the paint out from that spot, which allows me to have a lot of paint on the page but avoid losing any precision from an overloaded brush.

Get Perspective Often

Because I’m working on a flat surface, I sometimes have to stand up to access all of the painting. This is great, because it gets my eyes farther from the painting so I can see the whole picture and identify any wonky areas. I also try to remind myself to step back a ways from the painting to see how everything is looking together. I also often shoot photos on my phone, especially when working flat like this. These photos allow me to see the painting as it would appear across a room, which is critical for identifying any areas that are detracting from the focal points and helps me find areas where my eyes might get stuck.*

*(In my classes, I talk a lot about trying to create compositions and paintings that have a sense of flow/ direction for our eyes, so we are invited into the scene and then happily rove around in it for a while. Often, big paintings fail because a composition leads us off the page too soon, or makes us get stuck in a spot that doesn’t contribute to the overall story).

The hardest thing about working large is to just go for it, and try! So, once I decide I want to paint something larger, I try to start it as soon as possible before I have time to decide it is a bad idea.

I hope this was helpful! If you have any other questions about the process please drop them in the comments section below!