Venice Watercolor Painting Demonstration

I have just finished my latest watercolor painting demonstration.

The painting is of a Venetian Canal and is based on a photo I took when I visited Venice for a couple of weeks last year. I never get tired about painting Venice, it is so full of history, atmosphere and texture that it is like a watercolor artist's paradise!

When I left Venice after my last trip I briefly had a thought that I may have finally done Venice, but within a few weeks I was already looking forward to my next painting holiday there.

Here is an image of the finished painting:

You can find the full demonstration on my Painting With Watercolors site at this address:
Narrow Venice Canal.

I hope you find it useful.

Happy Painting,

Joe Cartwright
www.paintingwithwatercolors.com

Recent Awards

I have received two Highly Commended awards this week.
One was at the Sydney Royal Easter Show for the Venice watercolor painting below, and the other was for a watercolor street scene titled "Victoria Road, Gladesville" at the Artfest 2011 Art Show in the Blue Mountains, NSW (this painting is also shown below, though I have posted it in the past). My Venice painting sold, which always puts a smile on an artist's face :-)
Just thought I would share the good news.

Happy painting,
Joe
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.