Recently I completed a set of three aspen tree watercolors for a friend of mine. They were great fun to work on and for the first time, I recorded a time-lapse of my process (one photo ever 10 seconds) with the help of Darin. The time-lapse shows how I first sketch out the pieces, mask areas with brown packing tape, and add my layers of watercolor washes, textures, and darks. I worked on all three paintings at once, switching between compositions while the others dried.

Since these paintings are a set, I used related palette of color so they would resonate with each other. Each piece is painted predominately with Daniel Smith’s Pthalo Blue (red-shade), Hansa Yellow Medium, and Deep Scarlet. Each one has some additional colors mixed in, but the overall consistency of palette offers them greater harmony as a set.

The soundtrack to the time-lapse video is Maserati, “We Got the System to Fight the System” on their new Pyramid of the Sun album. When painting, I often lose myself in music and can listen to an album over and over. I learned about Maserati from my favorite radio station, KEXP, and the album was my primary painting soundtrack for the three days it took for me to complete these.

Enjoy and let me know what you think!