Texture As A Subject

Watercolor Painting by Dennis Pendleton. The adobe wall with the window was weathering in the most interesting way and it gave me the opportunity to paint different textures. Also the cast shadows from the overhanging trees showed off the famous New Mexico sunlight. I started with the window and placed it off center to the right and used details and value contrast to add to its importance. In the upper part of the wall the adobe covering had washed away exposing the adobe bricks creating interesting patterns that were fun to paint. The covering on the bricks on the lower part of the wall was still in tact and I painted this smoother area with some spattering and a few cracks with hard and soft edges.

The cascading cast shadows from the tree branches were the same adobe colors with bits of green for reflected colors from the leaves. The tree colors are olive, lemon yellow, and ultramarine blue. I created pattern and texture with smaller brush strokes and allowed some of the colors to mix right on the paper. For the adobe, I mixed cobalt blue, yellow ochre and a little cobalt violet. If you look carefully you can see a couple off my finger prints where I stuck my fingers in the wet paint to create texture. I painted with my paper on a 45 degree angle and you can see where the paint drips on the wall resulted thanks to gravity.

The more I paint the more I see subjects everywhere and I am reminded of the quote "paint ordinary things in an extraordinary way." If I keep this quote in mind I am never at a shortage of interesting subjects. Happy Painting! Dennis Pendleton