"Across the Valley", Mount Diablo Plein Air Watercolor

Across the Valley 22 x 22

This was started last fall and finished after a long winter of work this spring.
It has been very difficult to get a good image because of the value shifts in transparent and opaque passages of color. The blue green in the top part and blue violets in the lower section are transparent and the deep crimsons and burnt oranges are relatively opaque. In person, this painting looks great ,but every time I take a photo the light bounces back through the paper and shifts  the value on the transparent passages. This was printed in Plein Air magazine and it is much truer to the painting in the magazine than it is here. I don't want  to change the painting for the sake of a photo. The cool and warm balance here works very well for me and it's always fun taking a red and green scene and making it not look like a Christmas Tree.

Plein Air Magazine thumbnail