The west coast of Mexico is a wonderful place to paint with rock formations jutting out of the water and areas where the jungle comes right down to the beach. I painted the distant hills while the sky color was still wet so that the colors would blend together and the hills would get lost in the mist. The closer hills were painted with warmer colors and then the rock formations were painted with different violets and earth tones and some of the colors were allowed to mix on the paper. When I painted the water I decided to not do any drawing but simply went in with brush and paint and worked for a sense of rhythm and movement while leaving white paper to represent the foam. After adding a
As I sit here in my studio posting this blog it is 5 degrees outside and I am dreaming of spring when flowers will bloom and the days will be nice and warm. I painted this in the summer when the hollyhocks were full grown and the days were long and full of warm sunshine. It is part of an ongoing series of large florals that I have been working on for several years. It is 40×60 and I included myself in the photo to give a visual image of the size. Working on a watercolor this size presents special problems like the paper warping and the colors running together so I allow the medium to take over and work with the flowing colors. By concentrating on colors, values, shapes, and edges and al
