Tuesday 29 December 2009

Watercolour landscapes and more .....

T This is the watercolour book I've recently bought by Paul Talbot-Greaves called 30-Minute Landscapes, and I've been having a play ........

Now don't be ridiculous........! Of course I didn't paint this - it is a photo my daughter took recently of the sunset over the church in her village of Roborough. I WILL have a go, but the reason I have shown you the picture is because I used the silouette for the one I did paint.


I followed one of the 30 minute exercises and finished up with this - I was quite pleased for a first effort, and will certainly do more. The colours used are cadmium red, cadmium yellow, cobalt blue, french ultramarine and permanent rose. Paper size is 9" x 6"
The instructions are very clear and easy to follow, and although my painting looks nothing like the one in the book, and took a bit longer than 30 minutes, all the elements are there to catch the mood of a sunset.

Another book I bought recently is this one, by Linda Ravenscroft. I am still very much into fairies (I also bought her How to draw and paint FAIRYLAND) Both of them are amazing. Linda uses all sorts of colouring media in the books, and the technique exercises, which is what I am doing here are all laid out step by step.
Here I've drawn leaf shapes (from the book) first, then added watercolour, but I didn't have the exact paints - it still looks okay though. This is the wet on wet technique, but I have a bit of wet on dry at the top left hand side - that's what comes of 'fiddling' after the paper has dried! Looks okay though......
Now I've added the colour for the leaves, and added the veins using paintbrush.

Had a go at painting just leaves onto the white paper (wet on wet) and added the veins with a brown pigma pen. I should be using 140lb cold press paper but this sketchbook is hot press paper and very smooth, so whatever I do it will look different anyway (you can imagine it looks nothing like Linda's in her book - but I am learning a lot!!)
Just finishing up the paint with these two leaves, but they look so different on that background - which is 140lb cold press paper which has already been painted with acrylic paint. Delighted with these, you can almost pick them off the paper! (I drew them from leaves from my garden)
Must do some more using watercolour on top of acrylic paint.
I'll post again as soon as I have had an opportunity to try out some more exercises.

6 comments:

Sandy said...

Watercolor must be your thing. I'd never believe these are early attempts. They are great.

Mandi said...

Lovely watercolour Val......the fairy book is the one I am hankering after..will have to go and get it now!

LOVE STITCHING RED said...

Val, your work and experiments are FABULOUS! If you achieved all this after just a few exercises then I think I really must also invest in these books at some stage. I too love fairies and fairyland ... so magical

Love and blessings for 2010
Carolyn x

Doreen G said...

I am impressed with your talent Val and I agree with the others about what you have achieved in such a short time.
Well done you.

Heather said...

I love the leaves and skyscape you have painted. You are obviously making good use of both those books Val. About 40 years ago, we lived in a village called Roborough in Devon, but it didn't have it's own church and we had to go to Tamerton Foliot. Maybe there is another village with the same name.

dot said...

...is there no end to your talents my girl!!! The landscape is just lovely.