Friday, 7 May 2010

15 Minute Watercolour #1

Here's a little exercise I've set myself to do on an occasional basis. Try and do a watercolour direct to paper, without a preliminary pencil sketch. I'm giving myself a time limit of 15 minutes to try and keep it spontaneous.

In the first one, I've painted John's robin (see his blog here: http://jwjarts.blogspot.com/ ). Working without a sketch is very scary to me. I started with the eye and worked out the other measurements for his body from there, then quickly followed the tree top and finally the background wash.

It's no great masterpiece, but I think a useful exercise.

6 comments:

  1. 15 minutes with out a sketch? Fantasic! I think I should try doing more sketches like that!

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  2. No doubt you'll be doing something this way at Jean Haines workshop when you go, I don't think she ever does a sketch.

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  3. I think it's fabulous. Beautiful!

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  4. This is a beautiful little painting... I love the angle - from below, and the colours are so fresh.

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  5. LOL ... how fabulous to see my Robin in watercolours. You've done a brilliant job Frank - what a great exercise.

    This reminds me of a similar (but different) exercise I tried recently and you've inspired me to post about it.

    Great painting. ;-)

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  6. Thanks Crystal, Alice and John for commenting. I didn't think anyone would like this one much. Maybe I need to re-evaluate my work?

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