Day 12 A Watercolor Day!

 Rainy Season

Watercolor 7 X 10

One neat thing about doing a painting a day for 30 days is that you can try things that you've always wanted to try but haven't. I've wanted to try to paint rain for a long time. Summer time is the rainy season in Florida, we see a lot of rain storms, usually in the afternoon. The wind will blow, there will be thunder and lightening and the rain will come down in buckets for 10 minutes to an hour. Then, it's done. 

For this little painting I painted the palms first and let them dry, then I made a big puddle of gray-blue paint and painted over the palm trees with a big brush with one swipe so that I didn't move the palm paint too much. Then I spattered and spritzed clear water to make the dots and drips. After that dried I enhanced the drips and drops with white and blue paint.

20 Minute Postcard

I found some watercolor postcards in my stash and decided I should paint on them and send them to friends. I made up this scene of a clump of two palms on a beach at sunset. The water is calm as it so often is on the gulf coast of Florida. There is a rosey glow from the setting sun and the palm fronds are picking up some amazing reflections from the waning light. Perhaps I used a little artistic license for that but then, I do have an Artistic License. It's signed by Kathleen Conover, AWS, NWS. I guess that's official enough for me.
(Also posted on 20 Minute Challenge http://twentyminutechallenge.blogspot.com/ )

Sunbathers 2

From the second day of the Don Andrew's workshop: this is the second attempt at the beach scene capturing the light without making everything else so dark. I'm happier with the beach being more consistently light with the lightest where the sunbather's are. The placement of the palms is OK but I liked the placement in the first picture better. I also like that a little bit of sky is showing at the top. When I am consentrating on one aspect of the painting, I tend to forget to do the other things that I know to do. It must be a workshop thing. I know not to let the building end behind the tree but I did it anyway. This picture may be a good one to do again, who knows, maybe I'll get it the way I really want it. The third day we worked on figures and putting figures in paintings. I have a start on a painting with figures which will be posted later, if and when it get finished. This is the season in FL for shows, a very busy time.