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.

Two Ballet Dancers

Watercolour, 30cm x 40cm, painted on Saunders Waterford rough high white, my favourite paper at the moment. I hope I have caught the balance between greyish blues and warmer reds.

Two Dancers, watercolour

Preparing to Dance, watercolour

Two Dancers, watercolour

I like to catch the in-between moments in my paintings of dancers, rather than when they are on stage, for the relaxed and every day atmosphere they convey.

This time I chose a colour scheme based on green and red, which are complementary on the colour wheel. I made a preparatory pencil drawing of the same size as the painting to sort out the proportions and then traced it onto the watercolour paper.

I had to redo the painting, though, as I got the shape of one leg wrong when tracing and noticed it too late. Will have to make  a note to self to be much more careful when tracing that the paper does not move...

Pencil drawing of dancers

Putting out the flags for the Queen's 90th birthday

Two weeks ago I was back in London on yet another rainy day, but the streets were brightened up considerably by all those Union Jacks flying in honour of the Queen's upcoming birthday celebrations.

This is near the BBC (Langham Place), where my husband and me had lunch sitting in the window of a Pizza Express. We saw the newsreader Huw Edwards walk by to pick up some lunch, but I was too slow to take a picture both on his way out and on his return! He's probably quite glad about that.

Painting an Overcast Scene

The British climate certainly provides ample opportunities for painting this type of weather. In the past I might have avoided painting a scene in dull light and waited for the sun to return but I am now challenging myself by exploring this weather condition.

The danger is that the tones are all too close to each other and not providing enough variety in the painting. I tried to counteract this by playing up the colour in places to add interest.

Great Russell St., watercolour