Saturday, February 25, 2012

Grapes on the Vine

VINEYARD GRAPES
Watercolor 11x15

I began this painting with wet paper and painted in soft background colors, using more intense paint in the areas I wanted the grapes. I used shapes cut out of wax paper to place on the wet paint to create some of the grapes and did some stamping for leaves. When everything was dry I used negative painting to define the leaves, grapes and background. This was one of those paintings that I had to struggle with for a while but eventually the overall composition fell in to place. I am always telling my students that you often hit that middle point in a painting where it is easy to get discouraged but you need to push through it and keep painting - you will often end up with one of your best painitngs yet!