Watercolour Sketches

Following on from the subject of my last few posts, here are two hurried sketches which I painted recently. I am still trying to remind myself of the way that watercolour should be used, I think it is coming back to me, but oh so slowly.

Months, if not years of soft pastels and acrylics (not to mention abstracts, but that's another story) have spoilt my feel for the immediacy and delicacy of watercolour paints.

Soon I will try a reasonable sized painting and see just how it works out, I am almost frightened of committing at the moment, hence all this playing around with small and loose sketches.

But it is beginning to feel right, once more - see what you think:-

A snow scene (#2). 

A very simple application of washes

with the trees, etc, adding detail.

A Stormy Sky

I saw a version of this painting in a magazine tutorial and 

decided to try and get the feeling of an overcast sky in a 

snow setting. I think it has worked quite well.

As I said, I am becoming more confident, the acid test will be the next meeting of my art group on the 6th January next year - or next week as it is onlya few days away now.

I would love to hear any criticisms of my watercolours, I hope those reading the blog are interested in what I am doing at the moment.

Watercolour - A Snow Scene

In my last post, I discussed why I did not think much of a recent watercolour. I was intending to repeat it (or at least complete it) with those comments in mind.

I was at my art group last night and saw a painting in a magazine which really caught my eye, thus inspired I decided to try and capture the scene in my own style. Here it is:-

The drawing is a little sloppy but I am not too bothered about that at this stage. I am simply trying to get a decent painting. So am I happy with this? Well no. I believe that one of the issues is that this is a far higher key painting than the one I used as a reference. To investigate this, as I had packed my paints and brushes away, I tried to improve it in photoshop. I played with lightness and contrast and with saturation, the result was:-

I do think that this is much better, although I had to back off a little on the contrast as the bottom right corner was beginning to get far to dark and the differences in the colours was getting lost.

It is surprising how such a minor change can make such a difference to the end product. Of course, I know the importance of tone in a painting but like all amateur artists (well many at any rate) I often forget their importance as I try to get down the colours I want.

With pastels, I would just go over with another shade or tint of pastel, however it is not so easy with watercolour. But these practice sketches are bringing home how important the basics really are. I hope the lessons are sinking in. The next few weeks will tell, I would love to hear what you think about my musings or even about the art itself.