Saturday, August 23, 2008

AFTERNOON LIGHT REVISITED

Back in Feb-March of this year, I did a series of posts demonstration how I usually go about creating a watercolor. When I had finished the painting, I wasn't totally happy with the outcome so the painting sat in my studio for some time. Then just before I left to go to Canada, I took another look at it. I realised that I could make some improvements so started by applying more washes to darken the inside wall. Once this overall tone was established, I could see where next to go with the work and darkened the bottle first then added a few more washes inside the sill and surrounding walls. When I got back from Canada, I again returned to work on this piece. I added more soft foliage outside the windows and slightly lightened the shadows on the sill. With more dark green washes, I deepened the tone of the window frames and bars slightly. Some areas of reflected light seemed a little too weak so I added some Cadmium yellow to the lighter areas of the frame and that did the trick. A paler wash of this color was added to the upper panes to slightly warm the light there and I finished off by creating a few more textures surrounding the window. Finally happy, I now consider the painting finished. I found that by darkening some areas, there now seems to be more of a focus on the window and the diffuse light streaming through. Doing this little bit extra has I feel, allowed me to capture more of the essence of what I was seeing and feeling many years ago and this takes me right back to when I initially saw the scene. Now I can frame it and move on to my next watercolor. As with all my work on this blog, you can click on the image for a larger version. Also most of the paintings shown here are for sale so please contact me if interested (contact details are on my website).

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