It’s been a little while since I shared my last Perspectives post, though I actually began working on this one back in August. I completed the sketch and the first couple layers of watercolor in pretty quick succession but then got stuck, and the half finished project has been sitting dejectedly in a desk drawer since. But I finally motivated myself to pull it out and finish it this week. And voilà…
Los Angeles’ Griffith Observatory. I took this picture of the observation dome on my first and only trip to the observatory during my year-long stint in LA. I love the clean, geometric lines of the white concrete structure contrasted against the blue-green succulent forest. Being quite different from the other buildings I’ve painted, I thought it would be fun to try my hand at something a little more architecturally pared down. Working in a predominantly white palette was also a new challenge.
I drew the building in pen, as I wanted those lines to be crisp, but left the vegetation in pencil so that the effect would be softer and more organic while still retaining some definition between the individual plants. I then added varying gradations of blue-green hues, layering and blending as I went, before creating more depth by building up darker shades in the areas of shadow.
All this layering of colors and variations in depth and tones – exactly what makes vegetation look natural – became quite frustrating for me. For one thing, there’s no obvious or straightforward way to do it. It’s not like painting a house with defined spaces where your job is simply to color in the lines. While shadowing and highlighting is always important for creating depth, it’s not quite as critical to a fairly one-dimensional building elevation as it is to depicting layers of random and complex overlapping vegetation. And then the layering process itself is time consuming. This is problematic because I don’t have the requisite patience to wait for the paint to try before adding another coat or starting on an adjacent section, which inevitably leads to blooms and bleeding.
Alas, perhaps watercolor is just not the medium for me.
