Monday, August 07, 2006

Back from a long rest

The reason for the lack of posts here lately is the total absence of computers in my family´s summer house on an island just off the northern coast of Sweden. I´ve spent three weeks there, drawing, trying out my new tube watercolors and just being utterly lazy. I feel totally rested now, and since I´m back in Stockholm I thought I´d start looking after my blog again.

I´ll start with one of the watercolor paintings I did. I usually draw with an ink pen and then use watercolors on top, but during this vacation I´ve been practicing more “classical” watercolor painting, with just a few strokes of a hard pencil as a composition support before laying the colors on the paper. I brought a collection of different watercolor papers with me to the island, and painted mostly on these loose papers instead of in my sketchbooks.

Using tube watercolors – wet, not dried as in my everyday tiny watercolour box – was quite a revelation to me. It was easier than I thought, and funnier. I never really tried it before, thinking it would be too messy bringing the tubes with me. This time I´ve kept them in a tiny plastic box in my bag, together with a generously sized plastic palette, and it actually wasn´t that much trouble carrying them around. Mixing is as easy (or hard) as with dry colors, but the intensity of the colors comes easier with the wet paint. It´s faster too, since you don´t have to spend time solving the colors with a wet brush.

This is a view from the cliffs of a small island southeast of “our” island. It was sunny and windy, so the paint dried really fast on the paper. Good for me, since I tend to be a bit impatient with watercolors…

This was the first painting I did with wet tube paints. Considering that, and the fact that I haven´t been doing watercolor paintings in a very long time, I think it turned out ok. Funny thing, though, that I didn´t notice until I scanned it and saw it in small size on my computer screen: I´ve managed to get a bit of a fisheye view somehow. The horizon is crooked and the clouds look like they spread out from the middle. Don´t know how that happened.

Anyway, I´ll be back with more watercolors as soon as I´ve scanned them all.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Welcome back! I've been wondering where you've been. I always enjoy your posts and your artwork, and this painting is no exception.

Jana Bouc said...

Glad you're back! I'm looking forward to seeing more. The little sketch at the top is so perfect and the watercolor is lovely. Nothing like nice juicy paints!

Tami said...

Welcome home! Sound incredible! Love your painting, can't wait to see more! I haven't tried taking my tube w.c.'s out in the field with me, for the same reasons you listed, but maybe I will try it after seeing your success!

Ramesh Gandhi said...

Very glad you're back. I look forward to seeing more of your paintings. The hammock looks so inviting!

Felicity Grace said...

I've been wondering where you were too :)! I'm looking forward to you new drawings. I like the fish-eye appearance of your painting, it's almost like being there (can't quite explain that properly!) The pen drawing is perfect for capturing the feel of lazy summer days!