Big Flop – Please Scroll Past

OK, this is the first of three paintings today. After a pair of paintings supporting my LAOTY and PAOTY entries, I thought I deserved some fun today, so thought I’d do some experimental watercolour landscape painting. These are all based on ideas that I’ve tried before and was reminded of this morning by a Chris Stephen video on YouTube.

I decided try out techniques using the MGraham honey based watercolours and that I would paint a local scene from Queendown Warren. I put down a sky first, then the background on the left. Then I used a palette knife to put a line of paint straight from the tube along the bottom of the trees. I wet the area that I wanted the paint to run into, leaving a gap between the wet area and the paint. Finally I wet that dry area and the paint ran into the wet area. I tipped the paper around to encourage the paint to run wherever wanted it to and dabbed off excess water with a paper towel. It all turned into a dull, neutral colour, so I tried charging in green, violet and orange to liven things up.

I added some tree like marks in the random paint and had a few attempts at painting the foreground, even after I’d gone pst the point at which I knew I had a flop on my hands. But I eventually gave up.

I liked the sky at the start but, honestly, this is my worst painting for years, close to being my worst ever. I thought I’d better have another go rather than call it a day.