Midnight by the Lake

Watercolor painting by Alex ‘Rio’ Rodríguez

Painted on October 17, 2025

For a while, I’ve been thinking about trying a watercolor painting. Recently I discovered a wonderful teacher online – Javid Watercolor. He creates these beautiful and vibrant images and he is pretty fast which I love because of my short attention span.

I created this image based on his tutorial on Patreon. If you want to learn how to paint in watercolors, I find his tutorials easy to understand and follow.

Of course, I had to go out and purchased some more pigment. Which is becoming a habit and hopefully I’ll learn how to mix the ones I have since they are not inexpensive. I used colors by Holbein and Winsor & Newton for this painting. I didn’t own a Blue Turquoise so I mixed Payne’s Gray with Cobalt Green and Marine Blue to create the shimmer in the foreground water.

Creating the ripples in the water and the fine branches in the tree were my favorite parts. The row boat was challenging and I’m hoping to paint a few more until I get those lines to improve.

I hope you like the tranquility of the scene. I imagine myself walking along this lake in the evening during a cool night, a silent breeze thinking about the day and looking forward to another one to start on another painting.

Provenance: Currently held by the artist.

Pigments and support: Payne’s Gray and Cadmium Red by Winsor & Newton. Cobalt Green and Marine Blue by Holbein. This painting was painted on an acid free, 6×9, 25% cotton canvas paper by Fabriano.