Morning Painting in the Garden

Earlier this year, I typed up a list of watercolor projects I wanted to take on, then propped the list up where I could see it.  

 When I have time & want a new project, my list encourages me to try one of the items and stretch in a new direction.

I took my paints out to my garden on a recent gorgeous morning to try number 3 on the list.

I started with a pen and ink sketch, then added watercolor.

I found that the light and shadow of early morning in the garden created beautiful contrasts to paint.  I enjoyed using permanent violet mixed with ultramarine blue to make dark purple shadows with spots of bright green leaves to mimic the way that some of the leaves caught the light, and others disappeared in darker areas. 

In the second painting, I skipped the drawing and sketched directly with watercolors, beginning with a loose, wet-in-wet sketch of the bright blooms, then adding in the foliage and shadows.

I have a good friend, Ryan McCormick, who teaches drawing & painting the Pittsburgh Center for Arts  and Media.  We were talking about being self-critical versus self-critiquing with our paintings.  

Ryan likes to challenge his students to name precisely what they don't like when they hold up their work and say, "I don't like it!"

Ryan replies, "What precisely don't you like?"

Once you ask this question, you can figure out how to fix that problem and steer your art in a new direction.  You have grown as an artist.

Also, you can ask this question:

What precisely do you like about your art?

I took this approach with this second art work, at first feeling frustrated by some white spots and hard wash lines in my painting.

Rather than giving up and saying "I don't like my painting;" I stood back, noticed exactly what I didn't like, and then addressed those problems.  

I also focused on what I did like -- in the flower scene that initially inspired me, and in my own painting.

I discovered that I was drawn in by the way the flowers caught the morning sun, and contrasted vividly against distant tree shadows.  So I tried to mirror that in my painting.

I also realized that I liked the loose flower shapes and the way the painting was really a negative space painting.  I was focused on defining the flowers and their leaves by painting the spaces around them.

It was fun to simplify the scene and not to get as detailed in the positive space as I had in the earlier painting, where I painstakingly left little white sunlight reflections in the blackberries

Now it's your turn to make some art, step back, and ask yourself those questions:  

What do you like?  

What don't you like?  

Be discerning and precise, because the answers will help you to grow and make discoveries as an artist.

Happy Creating!