Mountain daisies

More daisies for watercolours this week.

Arrive to discover we’re supposed to be doing a painting twice the size of the previous weeks, but I only have one piece of paper with me and it’s the usual (until now) size, so I’m going to have to do a more compact version.

First, as per last week, draw the (much smaller) daisies and fill them in with masking fluid.

Second, wet top third of the paper and add the sky. And then (a handy trick which I’d completely forgotten) use a piece of paper towel…

… to pull out the snow peaked mountains in the background.

Then add another row of mountains with some mist.

Then add shadowing to the snowy mountains.

Then it’s all go again with a dark bit of land (with bloody trees), followed by wetting the lower third and adding a yellow field with some hints of pink wildflowers in the foreground.

While the paper is still wet, add some lupins (mine all just ran together into a pink blob) and start adding grass.

Keep going on the grass as the paper dries using stronger pigment.

Remove masking fluid, paint in centre of daisies and shade the petals. This is the point when some fence posts are supposed to be added in the foreground, but we’re almost out of time. The instructor demonstrates the posts on her version of this week’s painting.

Those who can, stay to give fence posts a go, but I need to be somewhere else, so I leave with this.

Back home a couple of hours later I dig through the pile to find my many-years-ago first attempt at this painting.

Obviously I had time for the fence posts back then and my lupins didn’t all run into a pink blob, but the snowy mountains are definitely better this time. That’s something.