Time for a new experience. To get some practice in (just in case I make…
Stockbury Church Tower
For my final dash and splash of the day, I headed out to Stockbury Church and settled down in a spot that I’d painted from before. After not being happy with my previous two drawings (and this was before heading home to paint them) I was determined to come up with something different and interesting. So I exaggerated the perspective, making the vertical lines converge together more quickly than they really did as I headed upwards.
Here’s the drawing I ended up with:
It doesn’t actually look up to much at this stage, does it?
When I got home, the computer picked out these three colours:
I must admit I was worried about this triad. Would the indigo and the orange be too opaque and make muddy mixtures? Would the orange be yellow enough for my needs? Could I even make greens? I thought this was looking like a hospital pass.
Anyway, as this was the last of the three, I was in the mood to go out with a bang. Rather than try to replicate colours (apart from some green for the trees), I wanted to enter into the spirit of dash and splash by just throwing on the colours and allowing them to do their thing. So that’s what I did. The only thought that went into the painting was to have indigo on the darkest places and orange in the lightest. Apart from that, I just let it all go crazy. I also threw on some salt to create some texture.
Once the tree and church were done, I put in the sky using the same techniques as I’d use for a conventional watercolour, wetting the sky area, tipping up the painting, dropping in some blues, then the odd bit of red and some orange at the bottom. And then dabbed a bit at it with toilet paper to create some clouds.
And look what an amazing work I ends up with! This is what dash and splash is all about. Expressive drawing and crazy colours giving this building some real personality. And there’s no way I would ever have picked out those colours without divine intervention. This one’s up for sale.
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