7/4/09

FIREWORKS

All day long, actually for the past week, we've been hearing the sounds of firecrackers and other fireworks being shot off to help celebrate our nation's 233rd birthday. Fireworks are really tricky to paint with watercolor, so here's my effort for celebrating - a rendition of a gentle evening at the lake with a beautiful red, white, and blue sunset, without fireworks.

This is a very small (for me) watercolor done as a demo many years ago in one of my intermediate classes. With the exception of painting the little duck in after it dried, this landscape took about ten minutes to create.

The focus was to let the water and paint do as much of the work as possible. Using the paint brush to deliver the paint to the paper, then getting out of the way, was the hardest part.

It used to be so like me to want to mess and play and touch up, and it was way too easy to overdo a good thing. But it's so true that watercolor does its best when it's allowed to flow and mingle on its own.

Happy Fourth of July, America!

"CELEBRATION" Transparent Watercolor on 140#CP Arches 11 x 7" COLLECTED

4 comments:

Suzanne McDermott said...

You've said it beautifully (a very difficult thing to explain - especially to beginning watercolorists) and you know I'm right there with you. Happy 4th to you, too!

Meera Rao said...

Beautiful painting and wonderful advice - thanks! and happy fourth to you too.

Autumn Leaves said...

A lovely sunset indeed!

I'm suddenly panicked at the thought of wet on wet and losing control of the paint. I find I'm fretting that laying paint over paint will change my colors. Took 2 classes but suddenly its all gone away (ok, it has been years since I took the classes). Watercolor is my favorite medium though so I'm going to have to check youtube for some instruction. My books just aren't cutting it right now! Oy!

Vicki Greene said...

Hope you had a great 4th. I like your painting and good advice.