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Summer Storm at Reenroe ~ watercolour & gouache
© Teresa Newham |
Some paintings go down onto the paper so easily they seem almost to paint themselves. Others can be a bit of a struggle - which is the case with my latest piece,
Summer Storm at Reenroe.
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the beach path at Reenroe
© Teresa Newham |
I wanted to depict the profusion of wild flowers which greeted us when we embarked on a wet and windy dog walk at Reenroe one rainy July morning last Summer - the last day of my Kerry holiday.
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early washes
© Teresa Newham |
For this painting I chose Winsor Yellow Deep, Burnt Umber, Permanent Sap Green, Cobalt Blue, Quinacridone Magenta, Titanium White, and Yellow & White Gouache. The early washes were fine, and I was quite pleased with the way the mountains emerged from the misty rain in the distance.
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adding definition
© Teresa Newham |
The grasses and fence posts didn't present any problems either - I only started to run into difficulties when I tried to lay down the flowers themselves. As we'd walked through the rain towards the beach the wet flowers had seemed to leap out at us, but spattering didn't give quite the right effect, so I tried dotting them in with a fine brush.
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adding the flowers . . .
© Teresa Newham |
Too late, I realised that this was a mistake. Never mind, I thought, Arches paper will take a lot of punishment; so I took some of them out and dampened down others. Trouble was, every time I made a change, something else looked wrong!
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. . . and adjusting them
© Teresa Newham |
By now, the painting was completely overworked, but I ploughed on, unwilling to be beaten. Some areas got softened, some things changed completely. A new path appeared, running from left to right. I kept changing my mind, until even I was forced to realise that you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. It was time to stop.
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the finished painting
© Teresa Newham |
You've probably gathered that I'm not terribly happy with this painting. Even putting a mount over it doesn't cheer me up. But the amount of work I put into it has made it impossible for me to look at the picture objectively. I need some feedback . . . !
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improved by a mount?
© Teresa Newham |
Well I think it's a great picture - one of my favourites. I love the vibrant colours and the way that the eye is drawn down the path towards the mist and mountains in the background. You can really imagine yourself going on the walk. I think the mount does help - it improves the focus.
ReplyDeleteThanks! I've had some interesting suggestions on Facebook as to what I might do to enhance it further - but to be honest I can't face fiddling about with it again just yet :-)
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