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A House in Winter

Its again a practice picture on 5.5 x 7.5 Fabriano 140 lb cp watercolor paper. After my last 2 ptgs had dried, I realized that watercolors lose a lot of intensity on drying. So u need to prepare a darker mixture than what you want it to look on paper. And I like the effects I got in blue this time, the color tones look just fine. I am really enjoying the practice lessons on 'Lets get started'. I would totally recommend it as a reference for beginners like me. The advices given on what kind of brushes to use is great, I would not have got this much control just on my own. So, I guess its a good idea to start with a book rather than random articles on web.

Happy learning!

Watercolor 101

I have found watercolor to be a much more challenging medium than oil for obvious reasons (at least to the artists). To non-art people, watercolors might seem more like a kinder-garten medium; however, once you try water, you know the hurdles it poses. One got to be fast with watercolors and it is more daunting a task if you try them after working on oils. Oils take ages to dry and give you ample time to correct the mistakes. Secondly, oil are opaque colors which means you can redraw with each new layer. But water doesn't give you any of these liberties. Watercolors being transparent, stay permanent on your paper. Even the lowermost layer keeps revealing itself to the viewer. So if you needed a white portion leftover in your paper, you better make sure, you dont wash over it by mistake.

For all these reasons, one may find it difficult to adapt to the quick and transparent watercolors. However, they do give you some bonuses - easy cleaning, time saving and cheaper raw materials. For all these reasons and the mere fascination of trying another medium, I am giving a serious try to watercolors. These are my first two attempts on artist-quality watercolor papers (Saunders rough 140lb). They are not great but I've got enough boost to try more fun stuff.

I was practicing flat wash and did a decent job with the background grey. So, I thought to add more stuff and make it a stand-alone painting.

I tries working on a design for my second attempt. This one is from Jack Reid's 'Lets get started' book examples. I changed the composition and was playing around with really bland mixes. Actually this was just from the left over of the first one. I did not realize it would be so dull after drying up. So, heres something that I learnt too :)

Vermont's covered bridge

covered bridge of Vermont
14x11 oil on paper

(bad scan quality)

Foliage

12x9 oil on canvas

Inspired by Larry Seiler's demo!

sketching eyes

Fall colors - finished

(20x12 oil on canvas)

Pink Rose

pink-rose
(10x10 oil on hardboard)

I always wanted to paint a decorative piece with creative background instead of still-life. This was a 2 days project and missing small details are pretty apparent. However, I still love this one the best so far.
The rose design is taken from one of Doug Braithwaite's pieces.