Two Cows, Watercolour

To my surprise, this painting almost painted itself. Quite often, I hit problems in a painting  that I had assumed would be straightforward and sail through others that I expected to be difficult.

I had a general idea that I wanted the meadow to be understated and was aware that I could easily overwork the grasses, so painted the background trees and meadow wet in wet in one layer, apart from the masked grass blades. The cows, too, were painted mostly wet in wet in about two layers.

Two Cows, watercolour 30cm x 40cm

Two rural scenes

These two watercolours are also based on my latest holidays in Gruyere. We came across the cows on our ramble on a very hot day, when they were keeping in the shade from the blazing sun, unfortunately right across our footpath! We managed to squeeze around them, though.

The second watercolour is capturing a shaft of sunlight in the evening.

Resting in the Shade

Last Light of Evening

Chateau de Gruyere

Gruyere, watercolour

I have recently returned from a few days in the region of Fribourg (Switzerland) and visited the charming village of Gruyere.

While I did not do any sketches on site, I took lots of photos to paint from later on. I know, many artists don't like painting from photographs and prefer using sketches only. I feel using photos for reference is fine, as long as they don't hinder one's artistic interpretation of a scene. One should not stick too closely to a photo and maybe think of it as a reminder of one's impressions at the time. Of course, a photo does not replace the decisions one still has to make on focus, values, colour etc.

*****

Ich verbrachte ein paar Tage in der Romandie und besuchte Gruyere, wo ich das letzte Mal vor Jahren in meiner Kindheit war. Der Besuch des Schlosses lohnt sich; ich war erstaunt, die Unterschrift des berühmten Impressionisten Corot unter einigen Wandmalereien zu sehen. Der Schlossbesitzer im 19. Jahrhundert war nämlich Maler und war mit bekannten zeitgenössischen Künstlern befreundet.

Gruyere ist ein vielbesuchtes Dorf und eignet sich deshalb weniger zum ruhigen Sitzen und Zeichnen. Ich machte deshalb Fotos und nehme mir jetzt die Zeit, davon zu malen. Sie dienen mir dabei nur als Ausgangspunkt zu meiner eigenen Interpretation der Landschaft.