The waterside garden

This is my latest watercolour pencil painting.

You may remember I showed it at an intermediate stage.  I have made the  picture smaller because it was beginning to get too busy.  This is something I must guard against – it’s so easy using this method to get too detailed too early, so I’m thinking of trying other ways of using the pencils.  Having spent years trying to loosen up, I don’t want undo all my hard work!

As far as this painting is concerned, the greens have been the most difficult to achieve (tell me something new!), and it is not an issue that I have resolved yet. Successes have been the actual drawing which is reasonably accurate (!), the bushes on the top near the wall, and the boat in the water.  The steps are a bit wooden (no pun intended).  The paint moves with water very quickly so some care is needed with brush strokes. Not every false move can be  corrected.

I’m going to try using the black and white watercolour pencils as if they were chalk and charcoal.  I have done one or two portraits using this method and got a good likeness, better than when using colour.  I think this relates to tonal value.  My other thought was to try line and wash.