Circular Flower Bed

Hello again and welcome to my watercolour blog. The painting I'm publishing in this post is a view of my parents garden in Topsham - a circular flower bed surrounded by mottled paving slabs.

I'm really pleased with the painting and enjoyed this particular style - I'm not sure what the technical term for this style is - dibs and dabs? I didn't do any background washes nor any real negative painting (creating light shapes by surrounding darker tones).

When I was choosing a reference photo to paint I really fancied doing this one as a pen and wash. I think I will continue and add ink pen to the painting and maybe a few more subtle shadows.

My intention was to photograph the painting in stages and this was successful up to stage 3 but then I became so engrossed in the painting I forgot to photograph any further stages until the finished painting! Oh well, maybe next time...

Here's the reference photo

Stage 1 - Sketch

Stage 2 - Reds

Stage 3 - Greens

Stage 4 - The finished painting

I hope you like the painting and I'll post again soon with pics of the pen and wash.

Thanks for reading.
Ian.

Added some trees to Bridge Over River Exe

Well, I have to say that the two trees are just way too similar in size, making a symmetrical composition which is a no no! On a positive note I'm quite happy with the brush strokes of the branches and the stippled foliage. The tree on the right does cover up the house that was tucked away in the middle ground trees but I don't think thats such a bad thing really.. For my next post I will do a review of all the materials I use.. and then back to practising some basics such as trees, bushes, hedges, foregrounds, paths and rocks.

Hope you like the painting, thanks for dropping by. See you next time.

Ian.

Bridge over the River Exe, Topsham

Hello! It's been a while since my last painting -- I haven't really practised rocks, bushes and trees as I had hoped so I haven't painting the rocks at Woolacombe as I planned. I fancied painting a bridge scene taken from a number of new Topsham pictures copied from my Dad's camera.

This painting is quite a bit smaller than my last few, measuring only 10 inches x 7 inches. It is a smooth watercolour paper (Hot pressed). I started out just aiming to do a few sketches of the Topsham scenes and after completing the sketch of the bridge scene, instead of copying to the larger 14" x 10" medium-rough paper I normally use, I decided to paint it there and then.

The smooth, smaller sized paper and using a No. 6 round brush for nearly all the painting had an effect on the style, being more wet on dry strokes leaving edges to the paint rather than the softer feel of wet in wet. I feel really comfortable with this style and enjoy the semi-precision of the houses and bridge achieved with this brush. The top of the sky was painted using a 3/4" flat brush and, as I mentioned, the rest of the painting was using the No. 6 round.

Again I've stopped short with the painting and photographed and blogged it before attempting the trees! I like to think of it as a simple version thats just about worth displaying on this blog...! I will put in the trees, bushes and twigs soon, and post a photo of this in my next update.

Here's the reference photo of the rather nice stone bridge over the River Exe, somewhere near Topsham.

Here's the painting so far with the foreground still to come.

And here's a photo showing a CD to give you the scale and size of the paper.

Thanks for reading and see you soon for my next post.
Ian.