Watercolor landscape

Landscapes have never really been my thing. I get bogged down in details, it takes forever, looks wrong, and I find it both frustrating and less interesting than people or horses. In spite of this, occasionally I want a landscape on my wall, or want something other than stark white paper behind my heroically posed main subject.

So, I learn.

The most useful thing I’ve learned in these watercolor courses is to focus on light and dark. It helps you focus on what’s really there, rather than what you think you see.

I’m finding that I like the results of my concentrated practice, even if it doesn’t look exactly like the reference photo, it’s still pretty.

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The Emerald Horse

My grandmother passed away in early October. I’m still getting used to the idea that I can’t write to her anymore. We had a short, lovely little memorial service for her, afterwards a few of the family friends came back to the house with us and we ate cheese and crackers and drank pino grigio (some of Grandma’s favorite things) and celebrated her life.

Being an introvert, and a sad one at that, I eventually huddled up on the couch with my sketch pad and watercolor crayons to listen to the conversation swirling around me. Since horses are one of the few things (only thing?) I know well enough to draw without a reference, I drew a horse. I drew an emerald horse.

Green and blue like the sea and seaweed on the beaches Grandma loved so well.

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Watercolors

Made a color wheel with watercolors for the first time ever.

I had art books when I was a kid–lots of them, actually–but never an art class. It was only after college that I decided to make a concerted effort to get better at drawing.

My first move was to buy a coffee table book of Da Vinci’s sketches. That helped. Mostly just buckling down and practicing at all helped.

My mother-in-law is a painter and is offering friendly classes out of her home now. I think I’m going to learn a lot.

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