Monday, March 24, 2008

Night Scene - Step 10



Step 10 - Completion

For this final stage, I knew the sky needed to be stronger and darker to give the light areas the proper glow. Continuing to "push" a watercolor at this point can be a risky move, since it's not usually possible to go lighter again and you also never know when you're gonna have one of those "@%#*! water has a mind of its own" moments. That's just one of the thousand or so decisions you'll have to make during a painting, but, like I mentioned before, 9 times out of 10 I make the painting better by pushing it a little farther. The most important thing is to not be afraid to make that decision - it's not like it's your last painting ever and, no, your life does not depend on it, no matter how much time and paint you've already put into it.

Having made my decision to continue, I closed my eyes (just kidding), turned the piece upside down again and hit the upper part of the sky with a strong mixture of Alizarin Crimson and Pthalo Green. In this case, I'm really happy that I decided to go darker. Overall, the painting is very close to my initial plan, and I feel like everything is working (despite the fact that there are always little areas that only I notice where I could have handled things better).

So, there you have it, the Charles Bridge in Prague at night in watercolor. Hopefully, you're all ready now to go tackle that night scene that you've been putting off for the last three years!

Just remember, there's no such thing as the perfect painting, your next one's going to be your best, and it really is about the journey, not the destination.