Learning Lessons, Trying Stuff

I’ve chosen the title to this blog because it’s the message I give students who are learning new skills in fiber arts (and other arts, in my case.) This blog is about my latest water color painting lesson and the resulting painting.

First, my inspiration. I have a lovely birdbath in my backyard. Everyday I watch the activity around the birdbath and think about painting it. So I chose it as my subject, for what I intend to be a series of paintings.

This is a morning shot. I am using this photo as a reference for my first painting of the backyard birdbath. In this first stage, I paint the subject.

I have sketched in a male cardinal to provide a focal point for the painting.

Next I used pale yellow and gold washes for the background underpainting. Let me say now that This was my Favorite Point in the process. Everything looks the way I want. The rocks, the pottery, even the background. From here on, it was a struggle.

Next came layer two. I added green to delineate the background and painted the cardinal with a wash of red. My instructor showed me how to paint a reflection in the birdbath and how to paint blades of grass in the middle ground.

Once everything dried, I added shadows to the birdbath, finished the bird, added the foreground, and dropped in a few spots of color to the middle ground. I also used a dark blue to under-paint the background. Here is the finished painting.

There’s a lot I like here, but there is plenty that I don’t.

I did Try Stuff. I Learned Lessons, and now I am ready for a Do-over.