Lidzey exercise.

I did this simple painting THREE TIMES! It really gave me some fits. Then. . . when I finished it, I realized I hadn't done it as directed in John Lidzey's book, "Watercolour Workshop!" It was supposed to be a small area of my garden (which it IS) and using only Fr UM, Cad Red, and Cad Yellow (which it ISN'T). Actually, I didn't use ANY of those pigments -- aaghh. I think I did do the first two correctly, but it was weeks later that I finally did this one and I erroneously did not re-read the instructions. Ah well, I actually like this one the best. I'm still striving to get dimension and depth and also a looser style. This was a very quick sketch and an equally quick watercolor--lots of wet-in-wet and I pretty much let the paint have it's own way. I was busy with some other things around the house that enabled me to leave this alone while each layer dried thoroughly. I know some watercolorists do not use black, but I like black and I used it--just little itty bits dropped in to give depth to the underbush part. The white blossoms (it's an oleander bush) were masqued out to protect the white paper during the painting. Then after removal of the masque, a very pale wash of cobalt blue was dropped in here and there to give some shading.

I'm excited that Kate Johnson is offering a Watercolor II course online and, of course, I was one of the first to sign up! We will be using her book, "Creating Textures in Watercolor" and I'm very much looking forward to getting started on Aug 12th. I'll try to get a few more exercises done from the Lidzey book before then.