Lunch sketch painted in my mini-watercolour Moleskin.
Categories
Naked hands
Category: Watercolour
I had big plans to do a whole bunch of watercolours on my sailing trip. In reality it was almost impossible to concentrate for any length of time in the 35-36 degrees of heat. Still, I had a wonderful holiday and my batteries are charged. The sketches are A5 in size approximately.
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| Reversed perspective. ( It felt right at the time! ) |
Categories
The big French challenge
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| Paimpol, Brittany, France |
Yes, I finished it, the biggest watercolour I’ve ever painted, 56x76cm or 22×30″.
I’m proud that I stuck with it, I learned so much by the endless mistakes I made. As a complete painting I am not totally happy, it is stiff and the uncertainty in my strokes is clear to see. Too much white gouache for highlights almost ruining it in the end. But, I learned so much by not giving up.
Buy good watercolour paper, the one I used was very poor, not cotton, it was closer to toilet paper in quality. I ran out and bought Arches 300g because of the poor nature of the paper I used, so I learned. There was one million things I had never experienced; like how does one paint stones walls? It’s really hard but it will be easier next time. Flowers, I had never painted them before either, not seriously, they were also difficult to master. Ah well, on I go to the next pigmented challenge …
Currently I’m working on a large watercolour, it’s a real challenge, I’ve never worked in so much detail before and I’m pushing my technical limits to the maximum. So, it was necessary to take a little break and paint this little watercolour nude. I like the freedom of the way the colour pigment illustrates the figure.
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| Nude 20130719. Moleskin, A5, watercolour notebook. |
I am on holidays, which means I have the opportunity to paint at last. Time, such a hard treasure to find.
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| Nude In Red Armchair, 30 x 42 cm (A3), 11 3/4 x 16 1/2″ |
I learn so much each time I do a watercolour. I learn, that I should not draw so many lines, that I should be patient, that I should simplify what I see, that I should be more subtle with my tones and finally, that I should be more confident with my brush strokes.
This is a portrait of Micke Nybrink, he is a Trotting media journalist here in Sweden. Last week I created a web site in which he featured and this is where the image of him inspired me to paint him. You can see the website and his photo here if you like. It took me three lunch breaks to complete the painting, almost two hours I would guess.
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| Micke Nybrink |
Categories
Lunch Sketch
Inspired by my watercolour sketches from the weekend I did another boat sketch today during my lunch break. I found my reference image on Google, I searched using the words, ‘Sailing and Archipelago’. The white foam created by the boat was achieved with office Tipp-Ex. 🙂
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| Lunch Sketch 20130702 |
It’s summer time and most people in Sweden disappear to relax and enjoy the short season of warmth. Either this or they are busy getting everything done before they take their holidays. So this month, I was the sole sketcher representing, ‘The Stockholm Sketchers’ group. It would have been nice with some company but I still had a lovely day.
I discovered that sketching boats isn’t easy, there is so much detail; so it’s a question of what one should leave out and what one should add to improve the picture. I’m happy enough with these two watercolours, sure – I made mistakes, I learned from them and I look forward to sketching boats again soon to see if I have indeed learned something.
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| Violette, Skeppsholm, Stockholm, 20130630 |
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| Leo, Skeppsholm, Stockholm, 20130630 |
Stockholm is empty on midsummer’s eve, only tourists walk the streets. Swedes are celebrating the year’s mid-point out in the country side and the archipelago. I decided to go for a cycle into town late in the afternoon and did this watercolour sketch of Stockholm’s Town Hall.
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| Stockholm Town Hall, A5 watercolour, Moleskin note book. |