Today I had our weekly Zoom painting session with the Lakeside Palette Club. I hadn’t planned out what I was going to paint today, so I started flipping through the pictures of previous watercolors I had on my phone. One of the things I am wanting to do is create variations of some of my older art, either in a different style or in a larger format. One of my fall landscapes caught my eye while I was flipping through the pictures. I decided to use this piece to inspire today’s artwork.

The original painting was done as a 10×8. I liked the golden tones and the blue sky so I kept those elements, but decided that I would use my 14×11 paper, create more depth in this painting and use negative painting techniques for the trees in the foreground. Creating depth and interest requires adding layers and layers of color so this is at least a two day project. I feel I got a lot accomplished today, and will spend more time refining and adding details tomorrow. I also added the sky and roughed in some of the foreground before deciding to pencil in where I want the negative trees. I will definitely need to lift some of the blue paint from the area of the sky where I added my trees.

Do you prefer finishing paintings in one session or over a few days or weeks?