Lion Wednesday, 20-Jul-11 20:28:00 CEST

Primrose, Primula vulgaris Thursday, 21-Jul-11 20:32:00 CEST

Wednesday, 20-Jul-11 20:30:00 CEST

Gerbera

When I started painting this Gerbera plant I had a distinct idea of what I wanted to achieve. It is good to have a plan for what you want to paint, especially with aquarelle because the less you touch the paper with the paintbrush the more fresh and crispy result do you get.

I wanted to express the structure of the plant and I was delighted by the vibrant red color so I also wanted that on my painting. The structure is many times given by perspective drawings but it is also the shadows that give structure to drawings and paintings.

To me structure in a painting is nice because it gives a representation of three dimensions of the subject. Shadows and contrast is also important for the structure. And then we have the colors. The vivid red! The challenge was ready and I took off and painted, and painted again.

When there were no more time left to paint the gerbera plant and I painted myself tired of it I was still not done. Something was not right? At the time I was clueless about what was wrong. The paintings in themselves are good but that difference with the plan I set out before painting and the result is irritating. Over a year later while writing these comments to my own paintings I start to see a pattern. I have been talking about the red in aquarelle. There is something with the red. Red gives me troubles. Now I know what it is. The red is not vivid and powerful, it is shy.