meldrum artI had big plans to do a whole bunch of watercolours on my sailing trip. In reality it was almost impossible to concentrate for any length of time in the 35-36 degrees of heat. Still, I had a wonderful holiday and my batteries are charged. The sketches are A5 in size approximately.
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| Reversed perspective. ( It felt right at the time! ) |
Here are a few more A5 pencil sketches from my holiday sailing around Corfu. The sketch book was a present from my son. 🙂
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| Paimpol, Brittany, France |
Yes, I finished it, the biggest watercolour I’ve ever painted, 56x76cm or 22×30″.
I’m proud that I stuck with it, I learned so much by the endless mistakes I made. As a complete painting I am not totally happy, it is stiff and the uncertainty in my strokes is clear to see. Too much white gouache for highlights almost ruining it in the end. But, I learned so much by not giving up.
Buy good watercolour paper, the one I used was very poor, not cotton, it was closer to toilet paper in quality. I ran out and bought Arches 300g because of the poor nature of the paper I used, so I learned. There was one million things I had never experienced; like how does one paint stones walls? It’s really hard but it will be easier next time. Flowers, I had never painted them before either, not seriously, they were also difficult to master. Ah well, on I go to the next pigmented challenge …
I have a watercolour Moleskin (A5) where I practice my watercolour nudes. I’m trying to do at least one a day. It helps me ignore the real task; finishing the large watercolour that is such a challenge and sits there beside me waiting …
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| A5 watercolour figure painting |
Currently I’m working on a large watercolour, it’s a real challenge, I’ve never worked in so much detail before and I’m pushing my technical limits to the maximum. So, it was necessary to take a little break and paint this little watercolour nude. I like the freedom of the way the colour pigment illustrates the figure.
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| Nude 20130719. Moleskin, A5, watercolour notebook. |
I found a wonderful model – posing beautifully. I will eventually paint a full sized homage to the image at a later date. I spent today doing two sketches, one watercolour with a Mucha inspired frame and the other in pencil. Both are about A5 in size.
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| Watercolour |
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| Pencil |
I am on holidays, which means I have the opportunity to paint at last. Time, such a hard treasure to find.
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| Nude In Red Armchair, 30 x 42 cm (A3), 11 3/4 x 16 1/2″ |
The house belongs to my mother in law, it’s a very beautiful place close to Paimpol, Brittany in France. I thought I would paint it but I ran out of time, I should not have waited until the last day of my visit. I am on holidays again now so hopefully I will find time to complete the painting using photographs as reference.
