I’ve been wanting to explore this subject for some time. I’ve just recently joined the ‘Seascape Art’ group on Facebook and have been marvelling at the creations of artists much more experienced than I. The paintings on there are quite inspiring!
Materials used above are:
A5 Aquarelle 100% Cotton Cold Press sketchbook purchased from Amazon
Kuretake Gansai Tambi Japanese Watercolours
Aquawash Brushes
White Gel pen
Colours used: Turquoise Green Deep; Indigo and White
Have to say that I am happy with my first attempt. Looking forward to doing this subject on higher quality paper.
The ‘Serpent’ was painted with the Sumikondo watercolours. The sand, ocean, and most of the island in the distance were painted with the Gansai Tambi watercolours. Daniel Smith paints were used a little for shadows, mainly under the rock.
The idea for the painting came from one of my Watercolour Sketch a Day sketches. This week’s painting was quite a different image in terms of colour and texture than the sketch I did below. Different paint and paper were used for this one.
Last Sunday, I completed my first A4 Watercolour painting for what seems like an eternity.
My Watercolour Sketch a Day continues to roll on…as of today it is 4 years and 216 days however, getting to do an A4 Watercolour has been a challenge over the last 13 months. With moving house, growing the business, family and personal health challenges and other projects it felt for a while there that it was almost impossible to do one.
I’m happy to say that ‘I have broken through that barrier.’
The first A4 painting I was doing on Sunday was going well…until it wasn’t. It was of receding mountain ranges and, after laying the relevant washes, I wrecked the mountains endeavouring to add detail.
The previous night I didn’t get a good night’s sleep and I was about to just walk away from my Art Room, when I thought, ‘maybe I could something simpler’, and at least I could come away with something. The image below is what I painted.
A much simpler scene to paint and I am pleased with the result given how tired I was. I do think in hindsight that the rocks are not punchy enough so I will work on that next time.
Still, as stated previously, I am pleased with the result and I had fun which is the main thing.
A little while ago I stumbled across a ‘Watercolour Canvas’ product in Spotlight, a material and craft store in my local area. Not that I’m all that experienced in Art but I didn’t know there was such a thing called Watercolour canvas. I thought canvas was for mediums other than Watercolour.
It is made by a business called ‘Semco’ and although it is branded ‘Artist Quality’ I’m not sure you would class it as such bearing in mind where it is being sold, the minimal cost and the fact that the term, ‘Artist Quality’ seems to get put on a lot of materials regardless of whether it is or isn’t ‘Artist Quality’. It comes in a range of sizes just like normal canvas and is available in a board or in stretched form.
My first attempt on a board is below, an image using a reference photo I took on our third trip to Norfolk Island, earlier this year. I did a light sketch of the image in pencil, then sketched over the pencil with pigment liners then started painting. The paint sticks sometimes and glides across other times and I used about 3-4 layers in some areas.
I particularly liked the painting in weathered boat areas.
“Old Lighter” – Norfolk Island
My second attempt on the board is below, a rather simpler, straight Watercolour image. Painting the ocean was particularly challenging as the paint hardly seem to stick to the canvas with the first attempt to apply paint. After letting it dry, I applied more paint and the original paint seemed to get disturbed so, in the end, I used less water and a bit more paint and painted very lightly.
“Feeling of Summer”
I have a few more boards left and look forward to experimenting with them, though I might apply some Gesso first to see what that does. I also have a couple of stretched Watercolour canvas 8×10’s here, one of which I’m experimenting with.
Communicating Creatively 