“Progression”
Watercolor, outer mat dimension: 24 x 12"
All the amaryllises you see here
were first sketched in pencil. Now this is tricky. Number one, if you look with
one eye and switch to the other, your subject jumps. Try it here by looking at
this WORD with only one eye. Now, quickly shut that eye and see the word jump as you
switch to the other eye. Try this exercise repeatedly and quickly, switching
back and forth between eyes. Then there’s the thing about flowers, they
continue to open as you’re sketching/painting them. I’ve decided, no more large
tight watercolors from life. Hence forth, my larger watercolors of flowers
will be painted from photos. By the time I finished sketching the amaryllis
blooms, everything had changed. It wasn’t me; it was Mother Nature. She waits
for no one, nothing. It’s really kinda nuts. The blooms had changed so much
overnight that the next morning, I had to redraw the ones I had not yet painted.
