Sunday 12 February 2012

Sky Wash 2

Sky Wash 2
Watercolour on Paper
26.5cm x 19cm (10.5" x 7.5")

This is an exercise from John Lovett’s Splashing Paint DVD.

I painted this as a warm up at the beginning of a painting session with the intention of loosening up and learning a bit more about painting with watercolour (see Sky Wash 1).

The sky is painted with two graded washes.  First, a pink wash is painted from the bottom of the paper and faded out towards the middle. After this is dry, a blue wash is painted down from the top.

The foreground is added after the sky is dry. It is really just a token gesture to put the sky in context.

The sky is quite pleasant but I haven’t made a great job of the washes – particularly the blue. Graded washes should be subtle - there should be a gradual lessening in intensity until the colour eventually fades away. My blue has quite an abrupt transition from a dark to light.

I am going to look for some advice and then try a few more experiments based on perfecting a graded wash.

2 comments:

  1. Nice evocative colours though.
    When I saw the "splashing paint" header, I thought of those 70's art films where artsy types (normally in dungarees) throw paint at a giant canvas to create a splodgy abstract....

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  2. Hi Chris,

    Thanks. I fancy having a try at splashing paint on to a giant canvas, but I will give the dungarees a miss.

    I think John Lovett is using Splashing Paint to mean a loose approach to representative painting that values emotion and atmosphere over tidiness and painting within the lines.

    All the best,

    Mark

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