on it goes...

its been some weeks now, that I've been working with a more limited focus than usual

 

sketching and painting and painting and yet more sketching

improvements come in small increments, most would probably be recognizable only to me, but I feel I'm better able to:

 consistently mix watery, juicy and pasty watercolour paint

manage the water and work wet in wet 

sketch marks are more deliberate, less hesitant

the need to rub out "incorrect" marks is mostly gone

and so on

I suppose it would seem that with those improvements the outcomes must surely have also improved but I don't know about that

 I do know I'm happier with the work now and as I gain better control over the method I can begin to focus more on the brush-strokes and composition

I've been taking a watercolour course by Anita Lehmann, an artist who, among other things, paints abstract landscapes

one of the lessons is on painting tree-shapes and this past week I've been practicing 

some I keep to refer back to, thinking about what's good and what needs working on

the bad ones get tossed... move on

the fifth one I did is the first one I kept

this is the latest version - sort of

I did two, one had better trees and the other a better ground so I tore off the good ground and glued it to the better trees

I'm struggling with fine lines for the branches though, they're way too thick so yesterday I bought a much finer brush, with very long bristles and tomorrow I'll start practicing with it

and just because I'm itching to get back to my Yukon work, I'm gathering photos of scenery and things I gathered whilst there and am going to make a few collages

a reader of this blog suggested I use some of the combinations I showed a few posts back in collage and I though it a great idea  - below is the start of the first collection

busy, busy days...

of the best kind