Friday, July 7, 2017

Re-visiting watercolor

I love the medium of watercolor. It is fast, spontaneous  and clean- easy to pack on trips- and yet it can be also be very tricky. I am mostly an intuitive painter- which is a good thing, but also can be confusing. Different colors have different qualities- some colors are transparent and others opaque- and mixing colors can give you either luminous or dull effects. I've been feeling like my colors are dull- and paints old and tired.
I bought this book a few years ago and recently pulled it off the shelf.
I bit the bullet and bought new paint and a new pallete- mine was about 25 years old!
It's still usable but sometimes its worth it to start fresh...
I bought all the colors Jeanne Dobie recommends and set up the palette the way she suggested.
I'm practicing with color swatches and glaze exercises in the book.. but also just winging it outside because the weather has been so nice and I can't be inside!
This one is the Audubon sanctuary at the end of my street. I cheated with colored pencils and white acrylics for the flowers ( purists wouldn't approve!)

My neighbor has a huge meadow in the front of their yard filled with lupines. I love it every year!
This tractor is parked in from of Hornstra farms in Norwell. It is a little 20 minute sketch, tweaked a bit in studio from the photo I took.

This is a path to the North River that is accessible on the Driftway in Scituate (next to Dunkin Donuts)
I'm enjoying learning new things ! Good for my old brain.
Thanks for looking!





1 comment:

sew-he knits too said...

You do great work Sally! I mess around and would get better (not as good as you) if I would paint more. I love your work