Grose River, Yarramundi, NSW

Watercolor landscape painting of the Grose river, Yarramundi, NSW

I painted this watercolor from a photo I took of this scene earlier this year. One week after taking the photo I visited the same location to do some plein air painting and the whole area was flooded from recent rains which made for quite a different painting.

I was mainly inspired to paint this because of the way the river meandered into the distance.

This watercolor painting was done on a quarter sheet of Arches 300 gsm rough paper.

Happy painting,

Joe

www.paintingwithwatercolors.com

His and Hers

His and Hers

This is my most recent watercolor painting. It was painted on Arches Cold Press watercolor paper, 300 g.s.m.weight. Its painted size is 27cm x 37cm.

The painting was done as a commission for a lady to give to her husband for their anniversary. They met many years ago when they parked their boats next to one another.  His is the one on the left..

Because of the message to the painting, I left out all other boats and buildings and am very happy with the final result.

I will be publishing this painting as a demonstration on my watercolor painting site in the future.

Happy painting,

Joe Cartwright

www.paintingwithwatercolors.com

Reflections and Shadows when Painting with Watercolors

Figure 1: Reflections of buildings and boats, Mevagissey, Cornwall, UK

I have just posted an article on my Painting With Watercolors web site covering the topic of shadows and reflections with watercolor.

It is not meant to be an exhaustive article but more one that covers some point I have found students often have difficulty with their watercolor painting of these subjects.

I have just recently returned from a five week overseas trip during which I collected some very useful photographs on the subject of reflections and shadows which I have included in the article.

The article can be found here: Painting reflections and shadows

Happy painting,

Joe Cartwright

www.paintingwithwatercolors.com

Free Watercolor Video Demonstration - Boats,Reflections,Water and Sunsets

The above painting is of Shoal Bay at Port Stephens, New South Wales, Australia.

I have just uploaded a free video watercolor demonstration of this watercolor painting onto my Painting With Watercolors demonstration site.

It can be viewed here: Painting Boats, Sunsets, Reflections and Water

I hope you like looking at the video which has been split into 6 parts.

I am considering offering the full DVD (better viewing than on computer) for sale at a future date.

Happy Painting,
Joe Cartwright
www.paintingwithwatercolors.com

Watercolor Tip #6

Venetian Sunset

Reflections

When doing reflections remember to make the reflections of light colored objects darker and reflections of dark objects lighter.

You can observe this yourself next time you are at a marina. Look at the reflections of the white boats and you will see that they are be darker than the white of the boats. If there are any black boats you will see that their reflection is lighter than the black of the boat.

The reason for this is because the color of the reflection merges with the color of the water, a kind of averaging effect.

Obviously this applies to all reflections not just those of boats e.g. the sky, buildings, trees, etc.