Plowed Field

This is an example from Adelene Fletcher's "Painting Landscapes: A Pocket Reference," an excellent little book for learning how to paint landscape by examples. I painted the first one on 90lb cold-pressed watercolor paper; the variegated wash was fine, but the dry brush technique didn't work well on this smooth paper. Then I switched to 140lb rough WC paper and painted the example twice. I still didn't quite get dry brush the first time, but something seemed to click the second time.

Last night I was very puzzled why my living room painting turned out so badly. The original pencil sketching was not bad and even most watercolor was OK, but the overall feeling was just not right. After discussing it with David, we figured that the sofa color was just too off; and because it occupied so much real estate, it made the whole painting almost repulsive.

Ah, colors... I'm attracted to watercolor's amazing colors, but at the same time it's a subject proved hard to master.

Media: colored pencil, watercolor.