Fields of Corn Harvested

I painted this watercolour about 3 years ago and it is one of my favourite paintings.

It was the result of one of the exercises from Alelene Fletcher’s 2003 publication The Watercolour Landscape Painter’s Pocket Palette.

The instructions take you through the use of masking fluid, laying a wash and dropping in stronger colours to lay the foundations of the painting, then building up successive layers of pigment until the painting is finished.

This exercise used a limited palette of 5 colours:

Click to enlarge

All in all the painting only took me about one hour to complete and I was really happy with the results. The colours are incredibly vibrant and the pale violet hills in the distance together with the strong, darker colours in the foreground give the  whole composition a great sense of depth.

What I learned

I learned several new techniques with this exercise such as negative painting, how to use weak washes in the distance, and how to build up the strength of the pigment in the foreground. This has helped me  to build up my confidence enormously and I now use many of these techniques in my own paintings.

If you have painted this particular exercise please share your feedback in the comments below.

Feel free to submit your own rating to the book on my review page here>>>

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About Ian McKendrick

Ian is an aspiring watercolour artist, passionate about painting the world around him in watercolour and sharing his experience with others. Connect with Ian on Google+

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