What if

My first painting for this week I titled "Wishful thinking", simply because I find the look in the gorilla`s eye so sad.

I can`t help wondering what he is thinking about........... The more I look at the painting, the more I am left wondering the answers to the question

Wishful Thinking.

15x11"

Fabriano artistico.

Grahams watercolours.

As you can see, I tried to paint in a looser style. I am enjoying all this experimenting that I`ve been doing lately, and I have noticed a change in my work...........

but............

I`ll always love painting detailed still lifes.....

Cherry picked,

15x11"

Arches rough

Grahams watercolours.

Having said that, if you look closely, you will see that this painting isn`t as detailed as I used to paint. Maybe one of these days, I will achieve loose painterly watercolours. Until then I will continue enjoying what I`m doing, and love every single minute of it.!!

washy playtime.

This is loose and washy for me, and I really enjoyed painting it.

The gossips.

15x11"

M.Grahams watercolours.

Fabriano artistico watercolour paper.

This was well out of my comfort zone, but I enjoyed every minute of it.

I was trying out new paper, so I thought I`d try out a new style as well. It`s not the best painting I`ve ever done, but I am pleased with it. Normally when I try to loosen up, it still ends up full of detail, but in this instance, I`ve left the details to a minimum. (for me anyway)

I enjoyed painting this so much that I`ve started painting a gorilla in the same style.........I wonder how that will turn out.?????

Gizzie`s kitty.

15x11"

M. tientes pastel paper.

A selection of pastels, and pastel pencils.

This is one of our cat`s kittens, she is so cute that I couldn`t resist painting her.

We have got three, three and a half week old kittens running around the living room now........and they are so adorable. I`m loving watching them olay and wrestle with each other.

Learning from my mistakes!!

Plessey woods.

Arches watercolour paper, 15x11"

M.Grahams watercolours. 

This painting is based very loosely on a photo that my husband took at plessey woods last week.
I tidied the area up a little, and moved a few trees around. This was just a quick practice painting. I will paint it again someday, but next time I will make sure that the shadow of the tree nearest the river, doesn`t join up to the trunk of the tree in the foreground. It just looks like a huge branch sticking out from the foreground tree.

Newcastle quayside in warm Sepia.

15x11"

Watercolour on arches rough paper.

This painting was a nightmare from beginning to end.............The sheet of paper I used was years old, and I think the size was ruined on it. I had areas where the paint wasn`t blending properly, the paper was lifting in other areas, all in all I struggled. I got to the point where I almost gave up on it, and I was about to bin it, but decided to carry on.........it was prctice if nothing else, and my theory is you learn more from your mistakes than when everything goes to plan.

I Had a very dark cloud on the left hand corner, where the paint hadn`t blended, so I took a magic eraser sponge and softened and lifted some colour, to give the impression of softer looking clouds. This made a huge difference already. Next, I wet the whole page, and painted a very thin glaze over the whole painting to tie it together.

I did have a shard of light on the buildings, but it didn`t look  right, now that I`d changed the clouds, so I blended in some paint to hide it. I also strengthed the reflections in the water, and generally tidied to whole painting up..................and although it`s no masterpiece, it looks a whole lot better than it did before, and I`m quite pleased with it now, considering how it started off.

Cullercoats Bay, looking across to Tynemouth Priory.

15x11"

Arches rough, 140lb.

M.Grahams watercolours.

This was painted on part of the same piece of damaged paper, that I used for the above painting, but this time I was able to control it, because of what I`d learnt from the previous painting disasters.

The bell tower in the foreground is part of the RNLI building at Cullercoats Bay. When we were there a couple of weeks ago, we watched the lifeboat team rescue a car that had got stuck in the sea as the tide came in.