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 Adelene 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
- Prussian Blue
- New Gamboge
- Raw Sienna
- Burnt Sienna
- Dioxazine Violet
Click to view
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.
Next steps
If you’ve painted this Adelene Fletcher watercolour demonstration yourself, or would like to offer your feedback then please share it with us using the comments below – Thanks 🙂
Watercolour and pencil artist, passionate about drawing and painting the world around me in watercolour, and using social media to share my story. Join in and take part in my journey by using the links below.