Depicting Desert Landscape Backlight Tucson AZ Watercolor Fine Arts
Depicting desert backlight
This is a transparent watercolor painting on cold press wc paper. The color scheme is warm. Notice the sky is yellow not blue because the sun is low down and filling the horizon. The veriticals of the saguaro are dark silhouettes against a bright yellow sky with a golden glow along the edges. The mountains of the background are light blue because the atmosphere washes out the intensity of the color.
To begin, an underpainting is done, bright colors wet-in-wet (with no hard edges) which is allowed to dry. Then gradually one layers the images of the mountains, bushes, foreground elements (wash on dry), then finally the dark vertical shillouettes crossing the skyline.
In terms of composition, the format is a long-narrow horizontal to give a panoramic effect. The distant mountains stop the action at the horizon line. The midground and foreground are filled with desert palo verde, mesquite, and low grasses. The saguaros become the center of interest with the large ones in foreground and smaller ones receding into the distance.