Monday, December 10, 2007

Italian Landscape


Italian Landscape
Originally uploaded by linfrye
Yesterday was a big learning curve for me. I started out (and those of you who know physics will fall off your chair for my ignorance) by stretching my wc paper -- but I had taped the edges FIRST -- instead of wetting the ENTIRE paper before stretching! Sigh. Well, you know the rest -- it buckled and buckled ... one has to wet the ENTIRE sheet and THEN tape. AHA! You bet I learned THIS lesson the hard way! LOL

Secondly, I wanted to create a feeling of haze between the red-roofed house (from a photo I took in Sicily) and the rolling mountains beyond. I tried to do this simply by dabbing at the colors with a tissue ... nope. No amount of dabbing kept the values I wanted and yet gave that hazy, grey feeling. Even with various over-glazes of grey, permanent rose or permanent magenta to add the compliment of all the green - I could NOT achieve haze.

What I'm thinking now is that I have to USE those greyed down colors FIRST and a bit of tissue dabbing to get the hazy, aerial look I want.

So, in all, a day of hard-won lessons .... but lessons nonetheless and ones I will remember more than if I had simply read them. I suppose we DO learn more from our mistakes than our successes ... but mercy, it seems to take a lot of time, doesn't it! LOL

6 comments:

Lorraine said...

Well from what I can see you achieved your goal -- nice misty background and clear, sharp foreground. It's a lovely painting. I love the rolling hills, the variety you achieved and the details in the foreground. I seem to remember that when Bill taught me watecolors, we taped, then just sprayed the surface of the paper with a spritzer so I guess there are various ways of working. You know me, I just love landscapes, and this is another of my favorites of yours.
Hugs,
Lorraine

Tami said...

I love the distance that your created in this and the red roofed house and barn. Yup, I know all about learning by my mistakes as instead of just learning from reading about "how to do it correctly".

Teri said...

It is a beautiful landscape Lin, just beautiful, and probably more so with all the lessons involved. But that's the fun of it.

Penny said...

Lin this is a stunning landscape, so evocative of Italy. I love it.
I have always taped my paper first and then thrown on water, perhaps it wasnt heavy enough?

Laura Frankstone said...

Lin, this is very evocative---I feel transported to the Italian countryside!
Sounds like you had a very worthwhile day of artmaking on Sunday!

Africantapestry and Myfrenchkitchen said...

I agree with Lorraine...there are so many ways to achieve an effect. In my mind no teacher or book can get you there. You can be guided, but the only way is to simply do it again and again!
Nice work here!
ronell