I've been trying to learn to do a bit more with watercolours than just colouring in the lines on ink drawings. One source of inspiration is Kees van Aalst's book "Realistic Abstracts". I did the first painting below sitting on the front porch. It's not specifically a scene I could see from there, but just elements of trees, shrubs, houses (the purple one is down the street, the gambrel roof is from a cabin we're designing), distant mountains, various random shapes. It looks to me like a misty morning in some wooded countryside. But I've got a long way to go with that style.
The second painting is loosely based on a photo from Montreal, done with just three primary-colour paints following an exercise from Shari Blaukopf's workshop. I also just put in some colours where I thought they would look nice. It was remarkably hard for me to do that instead of always trying to use the colour to describe some thing.
The last is my more standard pen drawing looking down at some pilings at the waterfront, but instead of trying to paint the water in a detailed analytical way, I just did a big wet wash of the warm tan colour, and dabbed in blue to make darker grey or blue patches. I think it gives the impression of the muddy inshore water reflecting some sky and catching the sun on a hot summer mid-afternoon. And it took no time at all, which is a bonus!
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