They fell too early....

 

The chestnut tree in our garden had a lot of flowers this spring and there were many little chestnuts growing on the branches of the tree. Usually there are more little chestnuts than the tree can feed so over time some fall. That begins at the end of spring and it will end in a few weeks. The ones that are still in the tree by then will grow to be beautiful large chestnuts.  

What falls now is at least three to five centimetres in diameter and when they open, a very little chestnut is already inside.

For this watercolour painting I have dripped some paint on a stretched watercolour paper, like I did during my painting vacation,. This time the paint I used was not very concentrated so it would dry faster (I work indoors now) and it could also be painted over without disturbing the background layer. 

On my background I have made a composition of chestnuts still inside their husks and some of the empty husks, that have opened after drying. Some are exactly the right size, but most of the chestnuts are painted larger than life. The fallen chestnut shells dry quickly and turn (dark) brown so I used the real colours of my subjects to paint them. Adding shadows to these dark brown colours was not easy, but I managed to suggest their round shapes and add some depth to the composition.

The information about the materials I have used, the size of this painting and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog.