Friday, May 8, 2009

Farmland in Monochrome

watercolor landscape painting by atul pande
Watercolor always scares me due to the apparent finality that comes from contact between color and paper. There is no way to retrace steps once brush meets paper. Yet I have seen videos of watercolorists who seem to effortlessly correct "mistakes" and produce beautiful pictures. As a result I have played with watercolor more and am finding that accidents can be turned into unanticipated creativity.

That was not the case with this farmland picture, but the challenge I set here was to produce a watercolor picture with a restricted -- almost monochromatic -- palette. I used only burnt sienna, raw sienna and ultramarine blue. The effect is a rather pleasing dusky scene that is so reminiscent of the American midwest.

Farmland in Monochrome, Watercolor on 300lb paper, 9"x12", Not for sale