Watercolor

Painting with watercolors. I love it! Although I do get frustrated with the way the water spreads when I want it to stay, and won't spread when I want it to fill in a certain area. But that's the beauty and fun of watercolor. It's challenging and makes me want to try again.

This is a painting I did for a man at work to give to his wife at Christmas. It is of a door that he made for her and apparently she really likes the door. He also plans to write her a poem about the door or something that correlates and attach it to the back of the painting. He is a romantic and I'm sure she will be thrilled.

(photo of door at bottom to compare with my painting - I definately took some artistic licensing!)

I started with a sketch. I decided to beef up the flowers and delete the white awning at the top as well as the house numbers. He had told me that his wife hates the awning and he plans to do something different for the house numbers in the near future. On the sketch you can see some colored spots - that's frisket, a glue like substance that I painted on to protect the white/light areas of the painting. That way I don't have to be as careful when painting over them. It is like rubber cement and rubs off later.

Next I painted in the wall and basic plant shapes. I added color here, but still don't have much layering. That comes next.

You can see in this picture that I've added layers of similar colors to create more depth.

Next comes shading with darker tones.

I completed the painting Monday night, but then the following morning as I lay in bed prior to getting up, I remembered I had forgotten to shade around the plants by the wall, under the cat and the rose trellis. So I got up, mixed up some paint and dabbed that on before taking a shower. It was all dry by the time I went to work and I took it in for inspection. He loved it and after discussing prices, it was decided he would give me lump sum and I would get it framed.

I took it to the frame shop on my lunch break and spent an hour picking out colors for mats, frame and the glass. I returned when I got off work and finished putting it all together. I love Frames, Etc. It's a local frame shop that lets you frame it yourself, yet they are there to provide guidance and help as needed. It's fun for me to do that part too. Plus it reduced my cost by about $40, which was more profit in my pocket.

Here's the original photo that was provided to me. I'm happy to announce that this painting project is done WELL BEFORE Christmas so I don't have it hanging around my neck dragging me down for the next 6 weeks.