San Francisco Goodbye

Totally fictitious address and Victorian with see through window and porch. It is a vertical format with lots of vertical movement conflicting with the slants of sky and hill and horizontal roof line. Take that Mr. Whitney for composition rules. I think of some of the points made by Whitney, but I think one needs to let it go and then review them on the finished painting. Maybe then, they will be more intuitive while painting the next picture. It was fun putting the painting together and bringing the tree behind the porch, which my neighbors call decking.

The Guest Cottage

Love painting birch/aspen trees and there were many of them in Canada. The guest cottage isn't really ready to topple over but this was a very quick painting. Sometimes when my painting gets ahead of my thinking, I come up with astonishing results. This is basically a cool green painting and the warm red note of color on the door of the house is perfect at the focal point.
I taught my senior class on watercolor how to paint birches and some are still marveling at it and putting them in all of their paintings.

Back Country

Was visiting with friends outside of Vancouver, BC. Truly beautiful unspoiled country with many possible paintings. It seemed there was one at every turn. Brought some pics home and painted from them. This one was done on 300lb Arches paper which is rugged stuff. I had a graded wash down to the trees and then put in the mountain range. It blended out, so when dry, I went back and put it in again with French Ultramarine which needed to be dulled down with some Payne's Grey. It is a nice complement to the golden and yellow colors.