Day 23: Feeling Blue

Day 23: Feeling Blue

Well, I am feeling a little blue, the sky is heavy and dark out there today in Rome, though luckily I have big windows in the studio to let the most amount of light possible in.

I wanted to add a little challenge to today’s painting, so I thought why not paint a series of objects that all have variations on the color blue.

Still Life with Blues
Watercolor on Paper
7 x 10″

I have 3 different blues in my watercolor palette and I reach for all of them in most every painting. Each is different in how opaque or transparent it is as well as more red or green. This was a challenge! I picked this rectangular blue basket to sit behind and it was difficult not to let it become just a big blue square blob. When things start to loose there form, I probably start going in and picking out some details to save it from blobdom.

I did remember last week’s lesson though in wetting parts of the painting before painting them to make smoother transitions, like in the little white cup, and that did help a lot and was much easier to work with.

Blue is a tricky color in any medium, so today’s challenge taught me a little about how to mix in other colors and which ones, especially in the dark blue shadows.

It is becoming clearer each day that there really is no end to being challenged in painting.