Finding Your Way

There is always so many decisions to make before starting a painting and as we all experience when we actually start out some ideas may have to be abandon as the watercolour makes some decisions of its own and its best not to resist but work with it.
This painting started out for me as a way of demonstrating to my class last week how I might use negative painting in the background but after an hour of painting it was left 90% unfinished. Some days later I started on it again making more of those considered decisions as to how to paint basically black and white birds and have them tell a story. I used a very limited palette of French Ultra Marine Blue, Permanent Rose and Burnt Sienna which gave me interesting blacks. Using just these colours in the background enabled the Willy Wagtails to be the stars but kept the whole painting in harmony.  It required more thought as to how I might bring the two birds more together so the decision to add the darker panels was made. Weaving the branches in and out helped with the design. The negative space was enhanced with some old script stamping which helped me find my way to tell the paintings story

You Kept My Letters
56cm x 30cm unframed size

Comments

  1. Beautiful...I always love your bird pieces Lorraine. You're so right about the watercolor making its own decisions!

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  2. Clever, clever! I like how you brought it all together.

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  3. Love the harmony of color!!! Nicely done!

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  4. Dear Lorraine very well done - your birds are always a delight to see. Love the background used to set them off too. Thanks for sharing.

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