Lucky me, to have a chestnut tree in the front garden, now I have an easy source of inspiration two steps from my front door. This watercolour is another one made after a reference picture of my chestnut tree.
This time I wanted to paint the foliage as it is still full and there are many patterns visible. The open spaces between the foliage can have interesting shapes - or not - depending on the standing point of the viewer.
The still growing chestnut has a very different shade of green and makes a nice focal point in front of a dark patch of shadows and leaves. The branches give structure to the image, without them you wouldn't know what you are looking at and I am not yet ready for that much abstraction.
For this watercolour painting I first made a charcoal study - which is not worth showing as it is really only a study in values and shapes, so it is not much more than patches of white, grey and black with some lines.
If I had painted from my picture I could have been distracted by all the other things that are in our street like cars, other houses and other trees, a bit further away. Making the study first, I could 'lose' these distractions in a first step.
So I used my very sketchy study for my painting and the result is even better than I hoped for. Now I just have to remember this procedure for future paintings.
The information about the materials I have used, the size of this watercolour painting and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog.
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