Watercolor Gourd Sketches

Gourd Sketches – w/c on 120 lb Cold Press paper

I have been pretty unlucky lately… Today I went into the dentist complaining of some tooth pain. Turns out that tooth was cracked. So three hours later I left the dentist’s office in a world of hurt after an unplanned root canal…

This being said, I was feeling pretty awful and did not have the energy to stand and paint at my easel today. So instead I sat in a chair and did some watercolors. It has been awhile since I last painted with watercolor, so I experimented with different techniques and color applications. The top gourd was my first attempt. In this one I started pretty much like I start with oil painting, applying the general local colors and developing from there. The middle gourd was the next painting completed, where I was just playing with colors and color theory. This one was based on the yellow-purple complementary palette, and then I would lay in other colors just to see how they would glaze over the previous layers. The bottom gourd was the last sketch, where I worked with glazes of pure pigment. No color mixing on the palette occurred. I started with a cad yellow in the light areas and cerulean blue in the shadow areas. The later color variations came about laying glazes of different colors, I used some viridian, pyrrol orange, with Prussian blue and quinacridone rose in the shadow.

It was a rather pleasant way to spend the afternoon after the trauma of the morning.