Reflections of Mountains
Here’s another one of the exercises that I tried from Alelene Fletcher’s 2003 publication The Watercolour Landscape Painter’s Pocket Palette.
This particular exercise is on page 44, under the Inland Water section, and just like the other exercises in the book , is broken down into three stages.
The first stage takes you through using masking fluid for the snow capped mountains, and laying down several very pale washes that you must leave to dry. Stage two has you working with masking tape, and concentrates on building up the tonal values for the land and treeline. Finally, in stage three you learn how to paint the reflection in the water, how to create ripples by lifting-out with a damp brush, as well as some scratching out when the painting has dried.
This exercise used a limited palette of 4 colours:
- Cadmium Orange
- Phthalo Blue
- Dioxazine Violet
- Permanent Rose
All in all, taking into account the amount of drying time that’s required as you work through the various stages of the exercise, it took me about one and a half hours to complete.
What I learned
I didn’t seem to run into any major difficulties at all, apart from leaving it a little too long before I scratched out the tree trunks, I ended up pressing the paper too hard and bruising the paper instead, but that’s part of my journey!
If you have painted this particular exercise it would be appreciated if you could leave your feedback in the comments below.
You are also welcome to give your own rating to the book on my review page Here>>>
Share and enjoy...
About Ian McKendrick
Ian is an aspiring watercolour artist, passionate about painting the world around him in watercolour and sharing his experience with others. Connect with Ian on Google+



I'm an aspiring watercolour artist, passionate about painting the world around me in watercolour and sharing my experience with others. For my day job I'm a broadcaster and Social Media Strategist.








