In this episode of Perspectives, I’m going to share with you a favorite image from my travels, this from a 2017 trip to Venice, Italy. I love the muted salmon and dirty blue-grey of the building set against the brackish water and the perfect placement of the gull, seemingly poised there with the knowledge that its presence was the necessary addition to really elevating the composition of the photograph. In hindsight, choosing to paint this scene was a bit of a risk, as it could have gone very badly, in which case I would have botched one of my favorite photos. Fortunately, it turned out reasonably well enough, though with room for improvement (as always).
As I discovered during my last project, I like the polished look of a white border around the painting but had some technical difficulties in achieving this with my initial taping method. Learning from that episode, where removing the painter’s tape also took off a layer of paper, this time I tried using clear scotch tape to block off the borders. Probably not the best tool for the job, but it was the only other kind of tape that I had on hand.
Needless to say, the clear tape made it difficult to see where the borders started when trying to map out the drawing on the paper. Plus I didn’t quite trust its ability to prevent paint from seeping under the edges. So I layered over that with my trusty blue painter’s tape for added protection and better visibility, with the hope that the bottom layer of scotch tape would prevent any tearing of the paper upon removal.
This new technique worked almost perfectly, with the exception of one small tear that occurred to an outside edge of the paper when the tape was removed. It seems there is still some trial and error to be had in determining the best taping method, but this was certainly an improvement. over the last go. As for other areas that need work… it is evident – both in the exercise of drawing and in the end result – that my artistic experience thus far is limited to buildings and some clumsy garden/landscape elements, not anatomically correct renderings of animals, avian or otherwise. It is an area that I would certainly like to evolve, but the prospect of becoming anywhere near competent in the photo-realistic depiction of anything covered in an impossibly detailed array of fur, feather, or scale, is quite daunting. Perhaps another day.
As you can (hopefully) tell from the picture above versus the one below, I added layers of pastels over the watercolor, a practice that I also started with my last project and one that I enjoy and will continue to play with. Because the pastels are far more saturated than the watercolors, I was really able to bring in a lot of the depth and shadows that are present in the reference photo.
And there you have it. Now who’s ready for a trip to Venice? Honestly at this point in the pandemic, I’d settle for a trip to just about anywhere. In the meantime, I’ll be mindlessly watching House Hunters International and Jack Whitehall’s Travels with My Father and not feeling any better about my own travel prospects. And also definitely not practicing my animal portraits. Cheerio!
Brenda Klaproth says:
Good job. Getting better every time.