I’m spending Christmas in Brittany, France this year. It’s milder than Sweden but it’s very windy. I like the change and also being able to paint outdoors.
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| Ploubazlanec, Brittany, France 20151220 |
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| Saint Brieuc, Brittany, France 20151219 |
Category: Watercolour
I wish there were more opportunities to paint longer model poses here in Stockholm. Maybe the art colleges have. If anyone out there knows of same position, one, two or three hours model posing please do inform me.
This watercolour took one hour in total to paint. I say in total because we had a 20 minute coffee break after forty minutes. See previous post for the last painting from the evening, it was a quick one that took 10 minutes.
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| One hour watercolour of live model, Arches Rough 300g |
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| Waiting for Västan. 31 x23 cm Arches rough 300g |
It took me two lunch breaks to paint this. I’ve been studying Chien Chung Wei, I feel very inspired learning from him, I bought his book and DVD. The problem now is that the hill just got much higher as I regard his work so highly. I of course want to be as good as Chein Chung Wei and Joseph Zbukvic, I put a lot of pressure on myself to improve. I need goals, trying to be as good as the masters is one and enjoying myself is the other.
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Old horizons
I’ve painted this before, the first version was smaller and had some sailing boats for a centre of interest. I left out the boats this time, I’m happy I dared to let the composition work without eye-magnets such as people or boats. Saying that, I think the end result is a too flat and therefore lifeless, I will not go down this path again, consciously at least.
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| Storm and sun. Arches rough 39 x 29 cm. |
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Never throw away a painting
I was about to trash a large painting when I thought to myself, maybe I can cut it up into smaller pictures. So I cut out two, one I liked and one I didn’t.
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| Part of a failed painting. 19 x 29 cm Arches rough. |
Today we sailed for five and a half hours to bring our boat back from the summer harbour. Tomorrow we take off the mast and next weekend the boat is lifted by crane onto land. The only thing left to do then is build a roof over the boat which will protect it from the harsh Scandinavian winter weather, I look forward to the spring already. For the record, it was damn cold sailing today, thankfully the sun came out at half time to warm us up a little, I used a gas burner to dry the paper in between washes.
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| 21 x 15 watercolour journal. 100% cotton 300gsm Clairefontaine |
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Two quickies
Here are two quick watercolours I did during the last month.
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| Seascape 20150813, 11,5 x 7,8 cm, Fabriano fne grain 300g |
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| Trawler 20150912 11,5 x 7,8 cm, Fabriano fne grain 300g |
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Week visiting Northern Ireland
I spent the week with my mother who lives in Northern Ireland. We spent two nights at the Killyhevlin hotel in Enniskillen. The watercolour sketch is an attempt to capture the view from where we stayed. It was such a beautiful view we had of the Benbulben mountain in the rain swept distance.
This was lunchtime watercolour was initially a failure. I made a mistake and I thought the painting was ruined. So I relaxed and played around with it, did things that I wouldn’t normally do like scratch the surface. In the end I was quite happy wit the result. “One should never give up on a painting!”, is the the moral of the story I guess.
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| Arches rough, 300g, 31 x 23 cm |