Staged watercolor exercise
Published by on October 2nd, 2008
Just a brief dabble with the evil that is watercolour, and one immediately understands that taming it’s wild, watery ways will take a lifetime. However, I recently came to realise that without actually trying, I don’t stand a chance in a dozen lifetimes.
The latest project is a tutorial piece from David Bellamy’s Developing Your Watercolours. Below are snapshots of the four painting stages/sessions done to complete this painting. The finished results is pretty good as an exercise in completing the tutorial, but it is not the style in which I want to work.
In the past, my paintings have been untidy, far too loose and jumbled with muddy mid-tones and unsaturated highlights. This image was selected because it contains strong, saturated colours, and deep shadows, as well as requiring pretty much the gamut of watercolour brushing techniques.
My idea was to work to the other extreme from my usual, unsatisfactory works, to help gain confidence in working with stronger tones. It takes some courage to wash such a deep sky right across a clean sheet of paper!
The result - based on my personal criteria for the completion of the project - is very satisfactory. There are three areas in particular that I am very satisfied with and that begin to reflect the watercolour style I am hoping to achieve. For more on what works and what does not, see the notes on the flickr version. Can you guess which part of this painting I am most satisfied with?
