The past week has been another frustrating one on the painting front. As sometimes happens, other things in life have to take precedence. On this occasion there were a few of those tiresome and troublesome necessities that needed attending to.
The good news is that I have successfully sorted a few of these things out and, over the coming weeks, I may gradually be able to return my attention to my painting.
This isn’t to say that I haven’t been totally unproductive!
Session 4 – Summer Greens
Following my most recent homework for Paul Talbot-Greaves‘ course on Using green in watercolour, I received some feedback on the painting that I submitted:
Here’s what Paul had to say about this effort:
“This has a really warm feel to it John. If I was being really picky I’d say your grass is bang on for value, but not quite cool enough in colour. Greens vary a lot between cool and warm, so more viridian in places would edge it more towards the cool side. Also, keep the sunlit greens in the trees bright and saturated and use only part tones for the form shadows, then use only a few spots of real dark to complete. It looks like you got a bit carried away with the violet and this is deadening some of the saturated form shadow in the trees.”
Once again, I think these are all totally fair comments but what’s great, is that as this course progresses, I’m gradually feeling more confident, not just in my approach to greens, but also in my overall understanding of colour mixing. It will be interesting to see how this plays out when I come to do more urban scenes and interiors but, while focus is on landscapes, I’m enjoying not being overwhelmed when faced with a view that’s full of greens!
At the same time as receiving this feedback, I also received details of the fifth and final session, the focus for which is temperature and the use of cool and warm greens. I’m already behind where I would usually hope to be on my homework, so will have to try to catch up over the weekend!
Back to the sketchbook
Although time has been short, we (as in ‘the family’) did manage to spend some time in one of our larger parks on the outskirts of Brighton and I managed to get a few reference photos that seemed ideal for practicing some of the lessons I’ve been learning.
These are all quick A5 sketches:
I don’t think that any of these are the ‘finished article’ – but I think there are some nice touches and some decent tonal touches in a couple of these.
Hopefully, I’ll be able to share something more substantial next week. It would be especially nice if I did because I have some rather exciting news to share and, to be quite frank, these sketches just don’t do the news I have sufficient justice!
Website snagging issues
I apologise to those of you that are experiencing difficulties with my blog since I moved everything over to a new website recently. Some of you have kindly been in touch to let me know that you aren’t able to see the blog, or comment or like posts in the way that you were previously. For my part, I have noticed this as, since moving to my new home, views, visitors and likes on my site and my blog posts have plummeted!
I’m working to try to address some of the issues that have been raised and am hopeful that over time these things will recover. In the meantime, many thanks for your continued patience and support!