Last summer I have been sketching the waterfall in the Japanese Garden of 'Dierenpark Amersfoort' (Netherlands). A few months later I have made a watercolour painting, using the colours that are naturally there in that scene. That is mostly brown for the rocks, green for the plants and trees in the background and a bit of blue for the reflection of the sky in the water. I was not really happy with the result but I could not really see what went wrong, so I let it rest, trusting that one day I would know how to make a better version.
When I am really taking time to make a sketch on the spot, that sketch usually is detailed and made only with black pencils, so the result is monochromatic. These sketches can be 'better' than a multi-coloured painting, because sometimes the use of colours does not represent the values that make the black and white sketch such a strong image.
That is what I thought to be 'not so great' in my first watercolour painting.
Now I have made a second version, using only Indigo for the landscape with a hint of yellow to paint the bright green plants that are at the bottom of this waterfall.
I have used my initial sketch as my reference again, but now I have not used the memory of the trees in the background (I had used a reference picture for that). The sketch does not have the trees either, and I wanted to stay close to the sketch.
The choice of Indigo was made mostly because the brown shades of the first painting were disappointing me and I wanted to do something different.
I like this one better than the first painted version and I don't think there will be a third painting or drawing made with this sketch as my reference.
More information about this watercolour painting can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
No comments:
Post a Comment