Morning Sketch 1 – Pumpkins

I have been waging a bit of a mental war with myself, and the monkey mind is everywhere and nowhere. Now, though, after devoting myself to several days of following exercises on painting rocks and rugged coastlines with a Shari Blaukopf class, I have at last decided to make watercolor my main medium. Acrylics just do nothing for me, but there is a small love affair beginning with oils. I take an oil painting / acrylic painting class on Tuesday afternoons, and that is where I will continue oils while pursuing watercolors with more focus and less of a scattered approach.

Watercolors have always held sway as a “first love” – partly because they are easy to clean up, partly because they are devilish hard to master. So, with the decision I made this morning, I have decided to try to do a watercolor every day, even if just a small sketch before I begin my day. Today, pumpkins.

I just put some water in a cup, took out a small travel palette with a few colors, grabbed a brush, and started to paint on some student grade paper. Nothing serious! But, at the same time, some thoughts in mind: contrast, hard edges, lost edges, verticals and horizontals, light and shadow, focal point.

Not a great beginning, but fun. Maybe I will paint it again tomorrow . . .

Even More Pumpkins!

Yesterday I decided to put together my own travel palette of watercolors.  These pumpkins are an experiment to see how certain colors work together.  I had to choose from a ton of colors, and narrow it down to 18.  Here I am using Quin Gold, Hansa Yellow, Perinone Orange, Carbazole Violet, Cobalt Blue, Sap Green, Green Gold, and Hooker’s Green.  It’s really hard to choose colors as well as how to arrange them!