meldrum artI will finish this tomorrow morning. Today I focused on the light and mid-tones. One never knows if a watercolour will be a success or not. The foreground figures will be dark in tone, it will be exciting to see what develops …
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| Central Station – Work In Progress |
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After a couple of days sketching at the Central Train Station here in Stockholm I felt ready to do my first watercolour sketch for 2014. I’m happy enough with the result, I spent two hours on it over a two day period. I used too much gouache for highlighting but as it’s just a sketch I really don’t mind, I’d prefer to use less of course.
I am getting up one hour earlier this week so that I have an hour to sketch before going to work. It is not as hard as I thought it would be. Now, I’ve found an extra hour each day to sketch and paint which makes me happy.
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| Under the Departure Sign at Central Station Stockholm. Moleskin A4 watercolour notebook. |
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| The first day, 20140113 |
This is a great Christmas present! It seems I do not need to outline anymore. This is the second watercolour I have created without any initial pencil marks. I am happy enough with the result and I look forward now to 2014 and developing this new found skill. 🙂
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| Nude with no outlines. Saunders Waterford HP paper – 31 x 23 cm |
The best image of Stockholm’s town hall is the reflection of the building on the water. So this painting was doomed to fail before I even started as I hadn’t left room for the water. Still, I used it as an exercise and I’m happy with what I learned. I used masking fluid for the first time, inspired I guess by Lars Lerin. Learning one brush-stroke at a time, that’s what it’s all about!
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| Stockholm’s town hall. 31 x 23cm. |
Joseph Zbukvic has a new video produced by APV Films. Joseph is one of a small group of watercolour artists that I draw inspiration and knowledge from, this new video is a treat for me!
This is the best gallery of Joseph’s work that I’ve seen on the internet.
This animation consists of 12 597 handmade aquarelle paintings, each painting is approximately 1,5*3cm in size. Together they form Anders Ramsell’s 35 minute long paraphrase on the motion picture Blade Runner (1982) by Ridley Scott.
I recently bought Arches watercolour paper. Each time I try to paint on it I get cramp, I find it almost impossible to relax. Why? Because I have such a respect for the beautiful 300g rough cotton paper. I finally worked out the solution to my problem, I simply chop up the paper into smaller pieces and in doing so I make the paper less precious. Now I am not afraid to make mistakes, now I can experiment and learn. You wouldn’t believe what a relief this is to me. I’m just another artist with mental problems!
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| A4 Nude on Arches 300g rough paper. |
I stumbled over Wendy Artin’s Watercolour nudes today. There are not many good figure painters who use watercolour as their chosen medium . I am happy to have discovered her work and have bookmarked her as a source of inspiration. You can visit her web site here.

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| Nude by Wendy Artin |