Looking Down
Today I want you to imagine you are looking down on an imaginary landscape. For mine I am looking down on a piece of farmland as it borders a body of water. I take the back of a failed painting and yes I have a bunch of them and if you don’t you are probably either never painting or you have a problem coming to grips with what’s good and what’s bad. I learned along time ago to let the bad ones go and to do it quickly, paintings are not like a good vintage wine that improves with age. No amount of time will improve a bad painting.
15 x 22 arches watercolor paper
On the paper I take a 6B pencil and sketch out a pattern that broadly represents the landscape I am imagining. I keep the details to a minimum and try to create a nicely placed center of interest, somewhere an unequal measure from all edges of the paper, and I make sure that all of the forms and lines lead me too that spot. Using a large wash brush, I loosely apply the colors again keeping the details to a minimum. This is a warm up exercise not an attempt to put in all of the apple trees, and Angus cattle. Give yourself about 30 minutes and do several. Two things will happen: you will find yourself making interesting shapes without a camera and you will learn a little about composition.
Give it a try.
Cool-this goes on the “try it” list that keeps getting longer!