I’ve been practising more with the watercolours and wanted to try and channel the grand master watercolourist himself, Mr. J.M.W. Turner. What I came up with was something quite inspired and equally quite spontaneous, although I spent a couple of days working to build up various layers.
Is it like a Turner? I doubt it, but it was fun imagining him telling me to use broad brushstrokes, so much so that I think the table got as much paint as the paper!
It was a fun experiment, however, and I’ve been feeling very much inspired to learn more about watercolour techniques. These watercolour sketches are definitely a nice little break from the oil painting as they are relatively quick to produce, owing to very fast drying times – unlike oil. And before you mention acrylics, I’ve tried them and really can’t abide them (they dry too quickly – so quickly in fact, that I don’t even have time to mix the right colours in time to put them on the canvas). You can add mediums to slow drying, although they thin the paint down too much for what I would like to use them for. At this point, I am not convinced that it is a good alternative to painting with oils.
In the interim, husband and I have been to New York. It was exhausting but fun too. I love NYC. We took lots of pictures, making a special trip to the Flatiron Building so that I could take oodles of reference photographs for my New York painting, which has sat patiently awaiting further work for the past year, almost. I did begin working on the sky shortly before we left for New York this time around.
I’m now trying to settle back in to being home and shift my brain into artist mode again. I was in photographer mode for most of our time there.
And just because, here are those pastel poppies I did a while back, slightly reworked digitally, and available in print format through my Etsy shop.
Diary of a Person Being Human 
You’ve been doing wonderful work. Mr. Turner wishes he could paint like you. Seriously, he does. Being dead really wreaks havoc on the output levels.
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Haha!! Mr. Turner is one of my favourite painting inspirations, as you know. 😉
And, thank you, honey. You are always so supportive of my daft artistic efforts.
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Stunning! Sneaking towards a mid-life Turner. His later works are chimeras.
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Thanks, John.
Yes! Turner’s later works are exquisite. I’ve been enamoured with them for years. If I could paint like that, I would be more than happy.
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I’d kill to be able to. I’ll never get there, but I can see you knocking out a Sun Setting Over a Lake by Tuesday next week.
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Ha! 🙂 You’re very kind, John.
Have you experimented at all with your dry painting technique?
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I haven’t. My little studio (the rather large bathroom to my office) hasn’t seen much action recently. My eye is presently cast on tapping out a bunch of short sci fi stories. Equally fun.
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Ooh, that sounds good.
I can see how a bathroom would work as a studio… 🧐
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Tiles are marvellous for cleaning 🙂
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Haha! Yes. 😁
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