Finding scenes to paint when it is overcast and nearly raining is always risky, if you are out in the open the rain can come down and ruin the painting, or create little splatters that actually look like rain. For example, in the yellow tree at Loyola Campus, or maybe this Japanese painting? In the painting shown above I was sitting in the middle of some bleacher stands so nobody could get near me, looking to my right at the main building in this park. In the summer I scouted this spot and knew it would be good in the fall when the trees changed colours. The painting seemed dull when I was doing it, but I knew the dark tree branches would really make the colours pop. I had to wait as long as possible for the yellow-orange to dry before layering the branches on top.
Fall Rainy Day, Trenholme Park, Yellow-Orange Trees, 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, October 2020
To compose decent paintings on an overcast day it can help to find high contrast elements, in this case a set of goalposts painted white, with brightly coloured fall trees behind it. I couldn't help adding the squirrels in the foreground, it was so humid I could only use one brushstroke to do them. There were dozens of squirrels all over the park, some of them encroached on my spot out of curiosity but I didn't have any nuts for them. To make fall colours, I used a lot of umber, a mud-brown earth colour (PBr7) from Shinhan brand watercolour. It is one of the pleasant surprises I bought this year, it is good for a variety of things, including neutral fall colours.
Fall Rainy Day, Trenholme Park, Goalposts, 4 x 6" cold press, watercolour, October 2020
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