Different Point of View

Watercolor Painting by Dennis Pendleton. This is another demo painting from my sketchbook workshop. I was intrigued by the red flowers surrounded by all the other colorful flowers. I was standing at this time and when I sat down the red flowers appeared against the dark green background. That little change in view point made the red flowers much more compelling. This is called an "effect" when you have a light value next to, or surrounded by, a dark value. Red and green are complimentary colors and that made this area even more captivating.

By using olive and perylene green I changed the deep green trees into interesting shapes. On my palette there is cadmium red, alizarin crimson, Indian red, rose dore and all four were used to paint the red flowers. I broke a "rule" here by placing the red flowers in the center of the composition. I did this on purpose and I like the way it looks with the horizontal format and dark background.

To paint the yellow flowers I massed in some transparent yellow then cut back into it with green and orange to form the flowers then added some burnt sienna dots to represent the centers. I find this works better than trying to paint each yellow flower separately. For the blue flowers on the left I started by spattering cerulean and French ultramarine blue then connected some of the dots with brushstrokes while leaving bits of white paper. Below the blue flowers I painted curving strokes of lemon yellow then added strokes of olive green while again leaving bits of unpainted white paper. The other flowers were painted with cobalt violet, brilliant orange, mineral violet and cerulean blue. When pulling these different areas together it is important to have a working order of hard and soft edges.

So, remember after you choose your subject look at it from different view points. Move to the left, right, stand up, sit down, move forward, and step back. You may be surprised what a little change can do for your composition. Happy Painting! Dennis Pendleton