I have been so focused on buttonholes that I am getting a bit nutso. Painting is a totally different experience, and was a welcome break yesterday and this morning from the analytics of buttonholes! If I do anything with sewing today, it will be later on. In a bit, we are headed out to collect our supplies for Thanksgiving dinner, and that will certainly be another pleasant break. I don’t know about you, but too much of any one thing becomes almost an obsession with me – analyzing and studying whatever. Painting does require a bit of analysis, but it also has an element of sheer doing that makes it very different. It’s very relaxing, and because it just has a life of its own, watercolor is a challenge and a tease as well as a very creative experience.
Anyone who does watercolor or painting or drawing is well aware of the need to simplify details, especially in masses of color. Every leaf does not need to be painted. When we look, we see these details, and the effort to simplify them into areas of light and dark and midtones can be – and often is – very challenging. Good artists make it look so easy!
The other day I was napping on the patio (I live in a warm part of the world). When I woke up, I looked at the podocarpus trees along the back wall, and suddenly got the idea. I saw the details of the leaves – each leaf – but I also saw the light and the dark areas. That is when I realized I could do it – but it had never been in the front of my mind before.
I went to work. No outlines by pencil, just some reference photos labeled “foliage” in a search. Varied pictures showed up, and here are my studies of simplified details.
These first three are thumbnails, about 3×4 inches in the order I painted them.
I did the above paintings yesterday. This morning, applying the same tactic of no lines drawn, I used a 9×12 inch sheet of paper and painted out to the edges. Again, the focus is on simplification of details into masses of color.
Success? I don’t think any of the paintings are particularly good, but I do think I am getting that element of simplification I find so elusive in my own painting.
Ink, Yarn & Beer 
I think you’re doing really well! The top one is almost Oriental looking, and definitely simplistic.
I think these are great! Well done 🙂
Thanks! It’s always fun to do things without any thoughts of “good” or “bad” when it comes to “studies” – not always the case with other stuff!
Thanks, Fraggy. Actually, it did make me think of sumi-e painting brushwork while I was doing it. Good observation. B-)
I agree, the top one has a clean simplicity – you’ve not messed with it and the texture in the branch at the bottom is lovely. I like bits of the bottom painting – the top half creates, for me, an engaging vista.
There is a fine line between simplicity and slapdash ( though many would disagree – take for instance antidrawing) and the more skillful you are, the looser you can become without losing your viewer – but first you have to pay your dues.
Thanks for the input, Graham. The bottom half of the bottom painting was too much – I think a smaller lower portion to show the shore would have been adequate. More than anything, though, the whole point is to just do areas of color. Period. I want to paint each leaf!!