Painting Weather

Capturing the weather in watercolor can be an interesting challenge. This is a view along the Seine from one of the bridges in Paris right after it rained. I used lots of soft edges and some dripping paint to help achieve the damp atmospheric effect that I wanted. Leaving out any hard edges in the trees and keeping the values close together caused them to look like they were heavy with moisture. Breaking up the water reflections with ripples and soft edges on the hulls of the boats gave the effect of a light breeze. For a sunny day I would have left more pure white paper on the white boat but here I used a light gray to create a thicker atmosphere. The weather is constantly changing in the Spring in Paris and it is a wonderful time for plein air painters.

Happy Painting! Dennis Pendleton