“In the wholeheartedness of concentration, world and self begin to cohere. With that state comes an enlarging: of what may be known, what may be felt, what may be done.”
— Jane Hirshfield, poet.
Four pears painted with a traditional colour wheel theme, as seen below. What is weird is that I really have trouble with backgrounds… they seem so easy, but to me they are not! I am also impatient and never wait for the watercolours to dry… so you can see that result with the top right pear bleeding into the bottom one. Humph! No matter, this exercise was really beneficial for my brain, my heart and my weary and tired eyes after prepping for two new courses from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm today. November is looming and the correcting frenzy for my courses has already begun. My heart is soothed as I read excerpts from Robert Henri’s book The Art Spirit. In his book, he says: “Art is life, an expression of life, an expression of the artist and an interpretation of life.”
Reading and thinking about Robert Henri made me think of Jane Blundell’s workshop as she noted that when we practice watercolour painting, we should actually be testing out water intake versus pigment. If you dip your brush once in water and shake it three times… look at the result. If you dip your brush twice… what happens? If your brush is dry, that is pure watercolour… which we rarely use or only use at the end, to put some calligraphy onto our painting.
Handprint.com also has an excellent section on these exercises.
Paper: Handbook Travelogue Sketchbook
Colours: Da Vinci Hansa Yellow Light, Daniel Smith Pyrrol Scarlet & Winsor & Newton French Ultramarine
Location: Rigaud, Quebec, Canada
Painting to see : Peindre pour voir 