Last week I painted three watercolours. Initially, I was really happy with all of them but after a while I gradually changed my mind.
I had just finished reading a lovely book about Edward Seago by James Russell. Seago was an excellent English watercolour artist that was very successful in his lifetime but was disliked by the critics. “He painted picture-postcards” a critic once said.
He was a landscape painter, he painted the countryside around him. A typical watercolour would be of a summer-blue sky, rolling hills and shadows dancing on the fields while animals grazed. He liked sailing boats too so you can understand that he inspires me a lot. His watercolours were very pleasing to the eye.
So this is the question, should I worry about my watercolours looking like picture-postcards? Maybe I should paint more watercolours like the one featured here. I painted it to counteract the three pretty watercolours. It’s of Poolbeg Power Station in Dublin Bay, Ireland. A quick sketch (30mins) 28x18cm.
Your thoughts please. 🙂
2 replies on “Fighting picture-postcard syndrome or not”
I like this, its difficult to make an industrial area interesting. We have a similar area here in Troon that i have tried to paint on a number of occasions
Hi Paul, Please forgive my very late reply. I missed your comment somehow.
It’s definitely interesting and certainly a challenge to make industrial areas interesting. I think it’s because I’m not used to it, personally. More practice, I guess.
It’s the summer now so I am back painting “pretty” pictures! It’s a beautiful time of the year to paint. I was recently in Holland and Brittany. It was so nice and so inspiring. Having a hard time getting going again now that I’m home.
I think it’s like this for everyone, I’m not beating myself up too much.
Cheers,
David