Day: June 17, 2012

The view from the El Viejo Bar of the pedal boats and the sailboats. Drawn on Tuesday June 12, 2012. I am really trying to apply what I learnt in Shari’s workshop in Montreal this June. One of the principles is to keep the highlights “not” painted in, and keep them white.

La vue du bar El Viejo. J’essaie d’appliquer ce que j’ai appris dans l’atelier de Shari il y a 2 semaines… tenter de garder des parties blanches, sans peinture pour maximiser l’effet des lumières. Ouf! Je ne sais pas si ça fonctionne, mais j’essaie ;-)

Here is a good drawing turned terrible by the watercolour effect. The sea does not look like sea at all. I created this painting on Tuesday June 12, 2012. However, I must say that it brings back such good memories that I am still happy with it.

La mer était tellement plus belle que sur ce dessin — mais pas grave, on essaie ;-)

Here is another painting, of Varadero Beach that I did on Monday June 11, 2012 at 40 degrees celsius! The top half of the picture seems to be disconnected from the bottom half, does it not?

Les nuages ont tourné vite gris et le vent s’est soudainement levé — un ouragan? Non, juste un petit changement de pression qui dura un gros 5 minutes — faut le faire, huh? Quand nous demandions aux Cubains s’il allait faire beau le lendemain, ils nous regardaient bien drôlement — LOL

Here is Brittain Hall, the Continuing Education building at my workplace. This is the painting that I created on my first workshop day with Shari Blaukopf in Ste. Anne de Bellevue, Québec. It was very hot on that day, and I foolishly decided to paint in full sun, and this made the watercolours dry up so fast that they smudged right on the paper. They froze on the paper… another learning curve.

Un dessin sans traits noirs… je ne suis pas habituée à ce type de dessin mais finalement, ça fait plus flou et moins peinture à numéros.

Here is another beach scene in Varadero Beach in Cuba… I am trying, without success, to paint beach scenes. With this painting I used a different set of colours. I tried Raw Umber for the sand, much better than my previous tryouts, Cerulean Blue for the sky and some Sap Green in the palapas fronds with some Burnt Orange. I am having difficulty with the shadows.

J’essayais de nouvelles techniques — qui ont tombé à l’eau — LOL

Here is a series of attempted sketches of Varadero Beach. The day was very windy and my Moleskine pages kept flipping back when the painting was still wet… hence the yellow splotches. I also forgot to paint the sky “before” painting the fringes of the palapas… due to a lack of experience in watercolours. I am learning.

Une des premières peintures que j’ai faite en arrivant à Varadero et c’était la première fois de ma vie que je peignais le sable — et trouver la bonne combinaison en couleurs a été bien difficile mais au moins j’y suis arrivée — un peu.

Here is a sketch of a cuban palapas in Varadero Beach. I tried many different combinations to get the sand right, and it is still too yellow. For the sky I used Cerulean Blue, and for the beach I used a combination of Cerulean Blue, Transparent Yellow and Burnt Sienna. It is so hard to paint with watercolours when the temperature outside of close to 40 degrees celsius.

C’est sous ce palapas que nous nous retrouvions à tous les jours. Il était super… il avait des crochets pour accrocher nos choses, Guy s’est petté la tête sur les barreaux à tous les jours, les mojitos étaient super bons — la belle vie quoi!