This is the image that I painted in my latest video clip.  It’s another version of the painting I posted a couple of days ago.  I liked lots about that painting but I knew it wasn’t finished.  For all the colour and nice bits it didn’t work as a painting.  My eye was not drawn to the centre of interest.  I received a couple of very interesting comments on that post including one from Richard in Texas who also really liked it but also realized it had some issues.  Anyway I worked on that picture for a few days to try to figure it out.  I did various versions and tried different effects.  It was a lot of work but in the end I think I figured it out.  As well as problems with the shapes, as Richard pointed out,  the main issue was that the centre of interest needed some darks to draw your eye in.  As it was your eye kept getting caught up in the darks of the bridge and it was a struggle to get past that.  What thrills me about this whole experience is that it reinforced to me that my style is one of experimentation.   I’m not able to just intellectualize what will fix a painting problem.  I have to experiment and try different things which is a lot of work but I don’t mind that at all as long as I get to the solution.

I dealt with this issue quite a while ago in the post The Case For Experimenters.  That post got a lot of reaction and I continue to discover in new ways that I am an experimenter.  I have to practice and play continually to discover my voice in watercolour.  It’s all about miles on the brush.

Anyway, this painting, which was created for my watercolour class, was a tremendous learning experience and I’m very grateful for that.