Santorini Sketching

 A couple of quick sketches I did in preparation of my previously posted work.  Each of these took about 10 minutes to do.  They were just to get an idea of whether or not I liked the picture, and whether or not I'd be able to paint a decent picture of it.  Obviously, I chose the second on to use as the finished painting.

Also, this is a good way to use the backs of those older, not so great paintings that accumulate around the house.

Enjoy.

steps

Well, I went back to the arboretum today.  It was really nice.  Yesterday there was a group of people at the gazebo and they were making a bunch of noise.  Today there was nobody but me.  I sat in the same chair, but instead of looking down the hill I move the chair into the walkway, and faced it up the hill.  You can see some crazy plants at the top of the stairs, and there was a huge terra cotta pot on the left hand side.

I chose this because I like the rocks so much from yesterdays paintings that I had to do some more.  I don't think I quite got the contrast in the rocks that I wanted, but I think i got a fair representation of the rocks on the path.  I didn't have enough time to do all the shading that I wanted to.  I might go back and put some in later.  I might, also, to make the individual stones and rocks stand out a bit more, outline these in black pen.  I havent really decided yet.

I purposely left a lot of white in this painting.  There was mortar between the stones that make up the stairs, but I thought it might be a little better to leave those spaces white.  I'll bet yo that until you read that last sentence and looked at the picture again, you didn't notice it the white spaces.

I painted this whole painting with one brush.  Usually, I use two or three.  My travel set came with a very small pure sable brush.  I had never tried it before, but it has the benefit of being small and easy to carry (I know, all brushes are small and easy to carry).  Having tried it, I can definitely see why so many people love sable brushes.  Not only could I do thin lines with it, i could so a larger wash and every thing came out pretty good.  I might have to invest in one, or in a set soon.  I'll keep you informed.  In the mean time, hope you enjoy the paintings.

little plants

Well I took another trip to the arboretum today.  I found a nice place in the shade where there was a seat and a table and I sat down and drew and painted this.  This planter was on the side of the pathway and looked like a good subject to start with.  Start to finish was just about 1/2 an hour.    Thats pretty good.  With something like this, I want to work a little quickly.  What i hope is that working fast will make me be less literal in my interpretation of the subject and force me to focus on getting color on the paper.  I have to say, to some extent I think it really worked.

Looking at the top of the planter, it really does look like the plants in front are closer than those in back.  Also, the rocks look like they have some depth to them.  Wonderful!!  The bowl of the panter is a little flat.  I could have fixed that with a little richer color, but I guess that is what I learned from this lesson.  Hope you enjoy.