Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Sand Beach Boulder (2009)

Sand-Beach-Boulder-200908

Watercolors

Sand-Beach-Sketch-200908I've always had mixed feelings about painting in acrylics outside-- I don't enjoy painting small, it's tough to carry around all of the supplies you need to some cliff edge or beach, and the paints dry too fast when the weather is sunny. But I have really enjoyed painting with watercolors on a sketchpad this year. In the past I haven't felt that the "shorthand" of sketching in watercolors serves me well when doing a final acrylic painting. But this year I feel like I am seeing a bit better my goals in a particular painting by rendering it live in watercolor first.

Sand-Beach-Boulder-Sketch-2

Window Box

I arrived in Maine this year to find that the annual Sunbeam Fair was in a couple of days. I found some watercolor paper already attached to a board from some prior year's activities, and painted a sketch of the window boxes my sister in law had planted. I hadn't realized, but my brother had also painted some nice watercolors for the fair.

Window-Box-Sketch-200908