Aquarellista Start up

Last Tuesday die-hards Bibbi, Cathie, Marianne, Sandra and me started the new aquarellista-year without any form of bang... We set up a still life out of bottles, and Bibbi, Cathie and Sandra used that as input for their very personal impressions:

Bibbi Isaksson's still life. Loosely based on the original - but primarily made with her personal colours, shapes and typical atmosphere...

Same in Cathie van der Stel's version! Same input, different outcome (to be developed further...) with the brightest blue and a very interesting background

Sandra Seymour-Dale's colourful impression - note the festive champagne fountains! (Effect of salt on the wet paint)

Marianne van Wijngaarden and myself digged a bit deeper in the loose, wet-in-wet style that she would like to master! As it is a technique that I do not use for any other thing than backgrounds, where accuracy and control are not so important, I enjoyed to work together with her. We took as an example an aquarelle from http://www.watercolor.fr/ (another aquarelle blog).

For the wetin-wet part: lavender fields and a mountain - wet the surface and mix different diluted! shades of blue, lift the paint where it should be even lighter and add more pigment for the darker parts. Then a small farm with windows and trees (wet on dry).

And lots of white to be left out!

It was a good, simple exercise that combined colour mixing, controlled painting on a wet surface, keeping the result simple and spontaneous. Worthwhile doing and repeating!