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Monday, June 7, 2010

Water Lotus


A fairly quick (for me) study of a water lotus. Still working on keeping the white space while I paint... still a struggle. I get carried away with the lovely paint colors and forget about the white space ... must learn some self-restraint!

When I do a piece of art I like to ask myself what I learned from this piece. The big revelation with this one is - no surprise here for you veteran watercolorists - Arches watercolor paper is wonderful! I admit, a little sheepishly, that I've had Arches paper in my possession for, oh, about 15 years (yeah, I know) and for some reason, just never got around to actually using it. A few days ago I found the Arches 9x12 pads in Michaels craft store on clearance sale... and bought another Arches pad... just like the first one I had .... that I'd never used! So, it seemed like a good time to try out the famous, oh-so-talked-about Arches. It surpassed my expectations. I had thought it made good sense to practice on the less expensive paper before graduating to Arches. But it paints so much better that I realize now what I was missing. Hmmm.... now that I'm spoiled on Arches I guess I could use my supply of less expensive paper for trying out experiments with new colors and brushstrokes ;-)

15 comments:

Kathy A. Johnson said...

Very nice, Teresa. I love the Arches paper--that's what both my watercolor teachers have suggested we use. I wonder if they make watercolor sketchbooks with that paper--time to pull out the art supply catalogues.

Laure Ferlita said...

P.S. Don't worry about the 15 year thing - gotchta beat!

Laure Ferlita said...

I just LOVE all that white space!! Lovely work!! And isn't Arches scrumptious?!!!

ArtistUnplugged said...

Very, very lovely.....I will certainly keep that paper in mind if I ever get to watercoloring.

Claire M said...

Beautiful!! I'd say success!

knittingdragonflies said...

I guess that must be like using good yarn and needles? I love this flower! Keep it up!!
Vicki
You have inspired me to get back to drawing, I actually did cartoons in college, it was fun. Not watercolor yet *grin*
Vicki

Simone said...

A beautiful, delicate painting. I find it hard to keep the white spaces when I am painting too! I love to use the more expensive papers to paint on, and top quality paint too!

Keith said...

The shading on the bud is especially good. Like how the green and red just blend into each other.

Ann said...

This is lovely! Looks like you get along very well with the "good" paper!

Jill Berry said...

hey, Keith just said what I was gonna say- "I like the green blush on the bud".
Nice work, Teresa!

padmaja said...

Nicely done Teresa, I specially love the way the bud is done!

K said...

Lovely sketch, Teresa. I know what you mean about good quality paper. I used Arches for a few months and then tried to go back to my sketchbook and found I wasn't able to create in the same way. Like you, I now save my cheap paper for testing out values when mixing paints, brushstrokes, etc.

Booklinks said...

Very beautiful Teresa, I think
the light and darks are just perfect!I agree with you. I love Arches papier.Ik often buy single sheets (That way it does not seem so expensive:)

Jan said...

I think you've nailed preserving the white in this one! It's so delicate and the colors blend beautifully!

Kudos on discovering Arches too!

Jeannette StG said...

Glad you discovered Arches, AND the Arches paper you never used:)
For watercolors I don't use anything else than Arches, although I like Fabriano too.
The first mainly, because you can scrub out your mistake, and heavy enough to do a pastel on top the watercolor.

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