Shetland Cottages

If you read my last post you'll remember I mentioned about an exercise in mixing greens but I got side tracked by a photo of a small group of cottages in Shetland. In this painting I used a slightly different palette swapping out Ultramarine Blue for Prussian Blue. I think the greens mixed using Prussian Blue are really nice. In a way this was a small exercise in green mixing but the main thing that's happened in this painting, which is quite a big deal for me, is the semi-abstract foreground. It's a new style for me - bold strokes that dry with hard edges and very little detail in the foreground. It's given me a sense of freedom from the shackles of naff foregrounds consisting of a few tufts of grass or reeds in the bottom corners. I really want to try lots more semi-abstract paintings, maybe just in the foreground and mid ground or maybe the whole painting could be semi-abstract. We'll see how it goes... One other thing about the semi-abstract foreground is the expression and a feeling of more genuine art in my paintings. That's got to be a good thing!

Lots more to come soon. Thanks for reading.

Reference Photo

"Shetland Cottages" Watercolour 14" x 11"