Arctic afternoon

Arctic afternoon, Arches 300 g, 22x33 cm

More winter landscapes. It comes from my choice of colours as I am more fond of the blue range of the colour scale than the green summer colours. I have used Arhces 300 g paper in the last postings. To learn more about the quality of Arches paper was an important lesson and experience at the workshop I attended.So now I use only Arches.

This painting is, as almost always, from my head and just "happening". I didn't plan any cottage in this painting, I was more occupied with creating a nice effect with the sky. But the painting needed something more, so I added a cottage and a flagpole to make a contrast against the background. I made it with a clever tip I learned at the workshop - by using masking tape: you put a little piece of tape on the painting, rub a line with the back of your painting brush or something similar upon the tape, and then rip it off - and you will get back the white of the paper. But  - it only work with paper such as Arches, otherwise, big pieces of paper may easily be ripped of.

Nordic winter watercolour

I made this painting when I came home from the workshop. I think I have loosened up quite a bit as a result of the workshop.

Summer by the nordic coast

Last week I attended a watercolour workshop by Bengt Jacobsson, a Swedish artist. It was such a pleasure, and I learned a lot during those four days. It was an introductory workshop for beginners, which was very valuable for me.

It took place at Gerlesborgsskolan by the Swedish coastline, as you may see in the painting.

You can read more about the Gerlesborgsskolan here www.gerlesborgsskolan.se , they offer a lot of watercolour courses during the whole year.

Here you can se the work of the artist and teacher Bengt Jacobson www.jacobssonart.se

A small artist

A simplified version of an oil painting by Tom Browning called "Budding artist".

Values and shapes in a painting

I would like to recommend a new book from my bookshelf. It is called "The simple secret to better painting" by Greg Albert. I find it very useful as it has some really good and simple tips of how to make good compositions and designs with regard to shapes, values, etc.

The book also has many examples of watercolour paintings. And I have again been doing the exercise of copying an other artist in this blog posting. This time it is the artist Jack Reid I have been copying (the painting was untitled). In the book by Greg Albert it is presented as an example of having interesting shapes in a painting. In addition, I think it also shows very well the importance of having a variety of values in order to make an appealing painting. For me it is very educational to copy others like this, and this has been an important reminder of the value of values in a painting!

Water colours!

A few days ago I made this colourful painting by looking after Frank Webbs watercolour painting called "Cascais".