Cityscape watercolor

A landscape practice and a few lessons learned.

Happy Sunday! 🙂

As I started working on this painting I quickly realized that things weren’t going as planned. When I dropped color on my damp watercolor paper I could see that my timing was off. My plan was to create distant trees but that was not what was happening. I was disappointed at first but continued on and did not fight it.

Lesson learned: Go with the flow and allow the painting to guide you.

Chilly Cityscape  9 x 12 inch watercolor

I continued dropping in color and resisted the urge to fix things.

Stepping back I could see an unexpected cityscape with buildings and trees. What a happy surprise. Things didn’t go as initially planned but that’s ok. I learned a lot from this exercise and in the end I love the cityscape painting that resulted.

Lesson learned: Watercolor sometimes delivers a happy surprise.

I plan on keeping this painting near my desk as a reminder of these important lessons. 🙂

I hope you are inspired to create art and do what you love. Thank you for stopping by and following along. Until next time, share a smile and have a great week.

Happy Painting!

Patty Anne

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Beyond the Meadow

A little landscape practice with an exercise from Zoltan Szabo’s book, 70 Favorite Watercolor Techniques.

Happy Sunday! 🙂

Beyond the Meadow – 9 x 12 inch Bee watercolor paper

The flowering tree in this landscape caught my eye. It looked like a good exercise to practice painting trees using the wet on wet technique so I decided to give it a try.

While painting the distant trees I reminded myself to leave enough white space for the flowering tree in the foreground. I was pleasantly surprised with the depth that I was able to achieve with this landscape and how quickly it all came together.

It feels calm and peaceful, I love that. 🙂

I hope you enjoy seeing my work and are inspired to create art and do what you love. Thank you for stopping by and following along. Until next time, share a smile and have a great week.

Happy Painting! ❤

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Simple Watercolor Landscapes

I’ve been working on a few simple landscape paintings. I used similar color combinations for my distant trees in each painting and have 3 very different results to share with you today.  Oh, and lots of blue. 🙂

My first step on any landscape painting is thinking about where I want the horizon to be. Once I decide how much space I want to reserve for the sky, I lightly draw a line for the horizon using a pencil and ruler. With the horizon line in place, it is easier for me to visualize the big shapes in the painting.

Using the wet on wet technique, I tried to indicate some distant trees.  When the wet paint hits the damp paper, it creates color blooms on the paper. It is so much fun to watch this happen!

I tried to keep things simple and not overwork my landscape paintings. I had to remind myself before starting each one, no fussing allowed. Hopefully that will get easier with more practice.

Distant trees Landscape

Indigo worked well in this painting.  I am very pleased with the addition of the foreground here, it seemed to balance things out. Although I like the other paintings below, this one is probably my favorite because I’m pulled in and feel something.

 

Simple Landscape

I really like the varied tree shapes in this one. The bits of white paper beneath the trees in the center area worked well. I need to remember that for future landscape paintings.

 

Abstract Landscape

This abstract landscape is very different from my usual style of painting. I love the blooms of color in this painting. ❤ The granulating effect of the French Ultramarine Blue is quite interesting.

I hope you enjoyed this simple landscape series.

Thank you for stopping by and following along. Until next time, create some art and do something you love. Hope your week is awesome. 🙂

Happy Painting!

Patty Anne

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Thursday Beach Blues

Beach Blues

Beach Blues painted on 9×12 inch Saunders watercolor paper.

A little poem that I wrote to go along with my beach painting.

My toes in the sand.

The sun on my face.

All troubles fade away.

Blue, calm, and peaceful.

Right where I want to be…

I hope you have a great weekend and do something fun.

Happy Painting!

Patty Anne

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Reflections in Watercolor

I really enjoy painting landscapes. A few weeks ago I was inspired by a very talented artist that posted this quick video on Instagram, pinkandsalt . There is so much to learn by watching another artist paint and demo their work. It is interesting to see what techniques they use, what brush they choose, how they hold their brush, and how they approach the subject they are painting.

All of these landscapes were painted a few weeks ago in my 8×10 inch Pentalic Watercolor sketchbook. I tried to mix things up with different tree shapes and color palettes. In all of these paintings, the trees and water share the spotlight. I suppose I could refer to them as landscapes and/or waterscapes.

Landscape 1 Reflection

I tried to punch up the color in the sky a bit and I added a little Daniel Smith Green Gold in the trees and water. I’m a big fan of DS green gold! #colorcrush 🙂

Landscape 2 Reflection

In my second landscape, I mixed up some darker greens and dropped in some Daniel Smith Pyrrol Scarlet and Pyrrol Red for some bold fall color in the trees and water.

Landscape 3 Reflection

The water is a bit brighter in this one and I used light orange for a bit of fall color. I really like the trees and reflection in this painting.

Watercolor Tips:

• Mix up enough color before you start. It is better to have extra than to run out of color while you are painting. I’ve done that before…
• You don’t need to always cover every inch of your paper with paint. When I first started painting, I always tried to completely cover the sky or the entire background area with paint. Over time, I’ve discovered that it is not necessary and I am usually happier with the result when I leave some unpainted areas.

I hope you enjoy seeing my work and are inspired to keep painting, creating, and having fun. If you would like to receive notifications of new posts by email, simply click the follow button on the right. I would love to have you follow me on this creative journey.

A big thank you to all for reading, commenting, and cheering me on. All of your love and support means the world to me!

You can see more of my work on Instagram and my website, PattyAnneArt. Until next time, enjoy yourself and do something creative!

Happy Painting!

Patty Anne

Florida Inspired Watercolors

Just a quick post on some Florida inspired watercolors that I recently painted. I have many fond memories of traveling to Florida with my family.

I posted these pictures and others on Instagram while participating in #worldwatercolormonth. You can also follow me on Instagram at: pattyanneart

Beach watercolor

Flamingo watercolor

Palm Trees watercolor

I hope enjoy my work and are inspired to keep painting and having fun.

If you would like to receive notifications of new posts by email, simply click the follow button on the right.

Happy Painting!

Patty Anne

Trees across the lake

I’ve been working on landscapes this week. I focused on using the wet on wet technique with multiple applications of color for the distant trees across the lake. I ended up with some nice results and have a few tips to share with you.

Painting tips:

• Lightly draw a line on your paper where the horizon is. I use a regular pencil and ruler for this. This simple line will be an important guide as you paint.
• Mix up a lot of color before you start painting so that you don’t run out before you are finished. For this painting, I used a green+blue, green+brown, and cool gray blue mix.
• I like to work from top to bottom on this type of painting so that I don’t smudge up an already painted area with my hand or wrist. (Yes, I’ve done that before!)

After working on the sky and letting it dry a bit, I worked on the distant trees by first wetting the tree area with water about an inch or so above the horizon line. Then with a lot of juicy color on my brush, I dropped in the wet color across the tree area. First with a pass across the top, and then across the bottom. It is important to switch up the color every few inches or so as you work across the paper to add variety and interest. I also had to clean up the horizon line a few times with the tip of a large round brush. Then I continued adding more color until I was happy with the the shapes and colors before moving on to the lake.

Here is my first painting below, I really like the colors in this one.

Landscape – Across the Lake

Below is my second painting. When my trees were almost dry, I lightly sprayed them with a mist of water to try and soften them up a bit. Well, things didn’t go as I expected, the color started to run and bleed quite a bit. I thought I ruined everything, but I decided to just go with it and guided the running color with the tip of my brush. After it dried, I was pleasantly surprised.  It kind of looks like rain or fog across the lake.

Landscape 2 – Across the Lake

Hope you enjoy and consider following me on my journey. Simply click the follow button on the right to receive notifications of new posts by email.

If you would like to see more of my work, you can also follow me on Instagram at: pattyanneart

Happy Painting!

Patty Anne