(This is not a) sunset - for a challenge

 

The April challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is about to paint or draw something that is not what it seems to be. The only thing I could think of is the famous painting by René Magritte with the text 'Ceci n'est pas une pipe' and so I decided to make something like that. 

First I painted a sunset, leaving room in the composition for a text. The text is in Dutch, meaning 'this is not a sunset'. It is added just like I add my watermark, using a PowerPoint sheet that is layered over the image of the painting. Below is the work I submitted for the challenge.

Making the painting was not easy. This was one of those days and I was struggling with water, paper and paint to get an acceptable result. At one moment I even washed almost all the paint off the paper, made myself some tea, let the paper dry and started over. That did help a little, but I still could not paint as easily as I usually do. Maybe just because I had not painted for weeks?

By now I am happy with to the result of my work, other people say it is a nice sunset (I usually ask my husband and/or my mother to comment on my work) and I start to think so as well. Taking some distance does a lot for accepting the results of your work!

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.