Simple watercolor painting demonstration of boats and water

Simple watercolor painting of boats and water

This is my latest demonstration for relatively new watercolor artists. It covers various watercolor painting techniques such as wet on wet and wet on dry as well as dry brush.

Subjects such as the drawing of simple boats and perspective are also covered.

The location of this scene is Pittwater a beautiful Sydney, Australia, coastal suburb and is based on a photo I took early one morning.

The painting is only about 7" x 5" but for the more experienced artists could certainly be painted larger - however for the beginner watercolorist I recommend sticking to this smaller dimension.

The demonstration can be found on my Painting With Watercolor site.

Happy painting,

Joe

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

Victoria Bridge Penrith Australia

This is a watercolor painting of a river scene I finished on the weekend.
It is painted on a quarter sheet of Arches Cold Press, 300 gsm paper.
The painting is primarily of the reflections, the bridge itself is not that inspiring by the reflections were great.
As it was a misty morning with the mist just rising, there was not a lot of color around, so this is  basically a tonal painting, which is a subject I naturally gravitate towards.
The small row boat allowed me to add a little color to the scene and also set the location of the painting, as there is a rowing club near this bridge.

Happy painting,

Joe Cartwright
www.paintingwithwatercolors.com

Plein Air Painting with Watercolor Darook Park

I went out painting with a group of friends from the Oatley 101 Society recently and thought I would post some of the photos and one of the paintings I did that morning.

The location was Darook Park in Cronulla, a beautiful coastal suburb of Sydney.

Here is the first location we visited, I got there at about 7am as I like to paint early morning light. I also like to get at least one painting done before it gets too hot and painting becomes even more of a challenge!

Location of my first painting

There was a nice atmospheric haze in the distance that attracted me to this scene.

The sky was a bit overcast at the time which I did not mind as it gave the scene a quite calm. Here is the painting I did:

Early Morning Darook Park

One of my friends kindly took a painting of me while painting so here it is with my plein air painting kit:

Me and my plein air painting kit

All my gear fits in a backpack except for the tripod. I use a modified wooden case to store brushes, palette, paper, backing board, paints etc. Will post the details of it some time in the future. I have an even more compact kit that I take overseas and in that everything including tripod and folding stool all fit in the backpack.

After I finished this painting we moved off to another location but I spent so much time taking photos of the area and chatting that I did not get to finish the second painting.  Here are a couple more photos of the area and group I was with.

Fisheries Station at Darook Park. The sun was out by this time.

Members of the Oatley 101 group

Me again

It is always fun to get out of the studio and paint while outdoors for a while and this was a particularly good day with nice weather, beautiful location and great people.

Happy painting,

Joe Cartwright

www.paintingwithwatercolors.com

Watercolor Demonstrations

I have just posted a new watercolor demonstration on my Painting with Watercolors site.
The demonstration is of sand dunes.
Please have a look if you are interested.
Here is the finished painting:

Happy painting,

Joe Cartwight

Watercolor Tip #7

Eye level vs Horizon line

Early Morning, Pittwater, NSW

When thinking of perspective one can think of eye level as the same as horizon line.

As you probably already know when you are at the beach objects "appear" to diminish in size as they approach the horizon. The same if you look down a long straight road, objects get smaller and converge at the horizon, e.g power poles, cars , fences, walls all appear smaller and smaller as the approach the distant horizon.  These objects appear to vanish at a distant point - called the Vanishing Point. The horizon however, is also at the eye level of the viewer. This is important to know because when you are painting a street scene or indoor scene your cannot see the horizon. So in this case rather than horizon, think of eye level and do your perspective drawing on that basis.

For this reason I tell my students to think more of eye level rather than vanishing point as it is always there!

Happy painting.

Joe Cartwright