This is a view of a canal in the UK and Paul has captured the atmosphere of the dank grey day, with the buildings on the quayside. The reflections in the water could be a little darker and that’s the problem with painting in watercolour. When the paint is wet - it looks darker, but as it dries , it dries lighter
Paul’s canal
August 12th, 2009Barbara G’s three ladies
August 12th, 2009
Barbara has worked using one colour and explored all the different tones in this painting - this is the best way to develop confidence when learning how to paint. She could now take this painting into colour, and use it as a guide. Tones in colours are difficult to achieve and this is step one on the journey.
Barbara’s musician
August 12th, 2009
Barbara used a wonderful wet mixed mediaapproach to this painting. I like the free easy style and the splashes of coffee granules for extra texture! The line drawing pulls out the details - do some more in this style Barbara!
Jennie’s waterlillies
June 3rd, 2009
Jennie mastered using Texture
paste and has painted wonderful
waterdrops of her lilies. I like
the way she has used dark
colours in the background which
emphasises the flowers
Marilyn’s fish
June 3rd, 2009
Marilyn painted these fish using texture paste after seeing one of my demos. Love the movement of the water swirling around the fish. If you use GlazeMedium you canachieve transparent effects
Pam’s owls
June 3rd, 2009
This delightful painting was done in gouache and was the first time Pam had tried the medium. Love the expressions and texture Pam!
Recent Customer Paintings
May 11th, 2009
Eiluned’s Flower
A fabulous result Eiluned! Using Cryla acrylics and painting in the darks, then thinning down the colour and buildingup the washes has worked very well. I like the way you have used the leaves, and darkened them right up close to the flower, to give the contrast of dark against light. You could exagerate the direction of light by darkening the separation between the leaves a little, on the area away from the light, otherwise an excellent job done in a new medium.
Marjorie’s boats in Acrylics
Marjorie’s boats painted from a photo taken while on holiday. Lovely subject Marjorie! I love the arrangement of the boats. Maybe the sea right next to the wall could go a little darker to create the illusion of distance? A touch of the green there will link the foreground water with the sea behind. Nice shadow under the boat on the shore but maybe the boats in the foreground could benefit from making the refections a little darker? Rule of thumb is that refletions are darker than the object above. Well done!
Peter’s Seascape in Oils
Hi Peter - very good! Here’s a trick I use. I put it into Microsoft Powerpoint and change it to greyscale - black and white, (or photocopy it) so that I can read the tones.
The hills in the distance are the same tone as the grass in the foreground, so they would benefit from being lighter, to create the feeling of distance…..scumble them with grey blue.
The sea behind the waves is all the same tone, so you could perhaps put a few streaks of colour, going lighter towards the horizon to break up this area.
I like the way you have lead the eye in with the curves of the sand, and the dark wave behind the white seagull works well.
Hope that helps! cheers Dee
Wendy’s Owl
Hi Wendy - well done on using gouache for the first time! The owl is wonderful. I particularly like the light effects you have achieved on the treatment of the feathers. The eye on the left seems a little too close to the right edge ,so realign it. I am pleased to see that you are working on a dark background. Gouache is something I only recently came across and I love the way it works - on a dark coloured paper. It is a watercolour, so wet into wet works, but it is opaque so transparency is not good.