~ AVENUE OF THE GIANTS - WATERCOLOR ~

Here is a smaller watercolor that I painted for the show in May. The Avenue of The Giants is a huge grove of redwoods about an hour south of Eureka, California. When you walk among these trees there is a sense of peace and awe, and you realize that you are in the presence of God's amazing creations. I used a brush-on masking liquid to preserve the lightest areas in the painting, and then slowly built up the values, saving the darks for last. The God-rays were actually made by using a kneaded eraser next to a straight edge. I did this very carefully, to avoid lifting the paper surface. I put in some of the foreground grass details by lifting the color with a small wet brush. The figures were the last thing that I added.
I went back to this location last weekend with a photographer friend and we got some great new shots. Also went to photograph the rugged coastline at Trinidad, CA. Great weekend.





.....(please click on the image to see a larger version)