Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Watercolour 'Summer Study'

'Summer Study' 10"X14"
What fun these watercolour compilations are. All are painted from life which for me seems to breathe life into the paintings. The two flowers flanking the composition are from a bouquet given to me from a friend's garden. These are flowers I don't have in my garden so they were interesting to study through sketching. I chose a wet-in-wet technique for the one and botanical detail for the other.
The bottom right watercolour is a close up of the trellising for the scarlet runner pole beans in our garden. "Will there be orange blossoms on the beans?", I was asked. "Well no, I had to use artistic license with the colour to fit in with the rest of the sketches." There was a sigh. Perhaps I best complete a painting including oranges.
The centre landscape was chosen for a size change to complete the composition and for me personally, as I had recently hiked the saddle between those two mountains.
For those that like to sketch or paint or perhaps even do textile work, I would encourage you to try a similar format as it allows for use of small bits of time and results in a painting about a certain time in the artist's life.