Afternoon in Paradise

Watercolor Painting by Dennis Pendleton. In Steamboat Springs Colorado, where I do my summer workshop, there is a gorgeous Botanic Gardens and this is a painting from the lily pad pond. It was a warm sunny day and most of the pond was covered with cast shadows from nearby trees. This is a view from a walking trail that surrounds the pond. Flowers were blooming all over the lily pads and I choose these three because of their location. The dark water showed off the flowers and I painted them with cobalt violet mixed with rose dore and left unpainted white paper for the edges. Their centers are lemon yellow, transparent yellow and burnt sienna.

Cerulean blue was mixed with perylene green for the dark water and cerulean blue and cobalt violet were mixed for the lighter values. I used the lighter mixture to create a trail that led through the dark water to the flowers. Each of the lily pads is a little different and I mixed so many different greens I can't name them all. The colors I used are olive green, terra verde, perylene green, spring green, lemon yellow, transparent yellow, ultramarine blue, cobalt blue, cerulean blue, and indigo. If you experiment with these colors you can mix an infinite number of greens with a myriad of different warm and cool temperatures. So that some of the lily pads would look under water I covered them with the cerulean blue and cobalt violet mixture.

There were little bits of yellow plants floating in the water so I spattered lemon yellow around the flowers. Also on some of the lily pads I spattered burnt sienna. Rather than trying to paint the lily pads exactly where I saw them I made sure the ones in the front were larger and an interesting arrangement of smaller ones surrounded the flowers. I wanted the flower on the left to be a little more important so I placed in on a yellow green lily pad where the trail of blue water led to it. It probably stood out enough on its own but it is fun to direct the viewers eye. Finally having some of the lily pads cropped by the borders gives the impression that the pond expands beyond my painting. Happy Painting! Dennis Pendleton