Watercolour project: Man with cigar

Over 10 years ago, the Magazine l'Art de l'Aquarelle (the Art of Watercolours) had a column for advice, by the excellent Aquarellista Janine Galicia. And the question one day was, 'could you give me some advice to make my painting stronger' with the original photo and the watercolour. Janine then spruced it up, but with brown tones and I guess directly on the photo - I didn't like it much, and most of all thought, we can do that better! 

So it became the challenge of the day and some really good portraits were created. I sent the pictures to l'Art de l'Aquerelle, but never heard back from them. Here are some results

Last week we needed an in-between exercise and decided to give this another go. Not one is finished - but again fun to do and great results, already. I may send them to the magazine again! Wou never know, we might finally become famous 😀Here are the works in progress (WIP's)

Marie Françoise has almost finished hers.
A bit more contrast, shadow - the background is already really good!

Anna Karin is back! It is great to have her around again, in person and in original take on the work, always so inspiring. Her Man with cigar needs a face - but the basic colours are so well-applied, can't wait to see him finished.

My WIP - I need more contrast, his features are mwah especially the mouth, and the background needs to be finished. But hey, I loved doing it and that's what counts.

As usual there were other projects going on too:

Janine finished her pre-holiday poppy detail, and it is so transparent! Love it. She also started with an oyster (good subject for all of us in the future). It is looking very good and simple, only that shadow...it  is a bit dark. We'll see next time if we will do something about it.

Anna is back too! She worked in 'Anna Karin-style' on her pomegranate.

This means, making the whole background wet, leaving the subject dry. Then add loads of paint and flow that around the subject by moving your paper. After the background paint has dried, same with the subject, to see more about that styler, check out this blogpost from 2022

Then make plenty pomeganate-red, drip that on the wet paper and turn the paper until the whole fruit is covered. Then add shadows - and wipe a bit of highlight! To be refined next time...

Brenda finished the adorable portrait of her adorable granddaughter. Absolutely wonderful, in resemblance, atmosphere and composition. Big compliment!

Laura finished some of last season's paintings, so that she can start again with a feeling of accomplishment (my interpretation) And that led to a gorgeous butterfly as well as a painting of nearby village Opio. That I find very well done!!

Bev painted a new version of Auribeau (where we went on a painting trip) and although it is in oils, not watercolours, it looks so good and light and I am sure that her watercolour version would have the same light and freshness.
She also embarked on a project to paint her mother (already in the picture) and her daughter in one painting, because they look so much like each other...