Autumn Watercolours

Hello all!  Apologies for the long silence here - no words or pictures for ages.  It's mostly being busy with other things and my mental energy being engaged with future plans, and partly just that slight slump which arrives as winter creeps towards us, the lack of light as the clocks go back, and that feeling of preparing for hibernation.

Before we end up in full on winter, I thought I ought to fulfil my promise to share some of the autumnal watercolours I dabbled in during my recent stay in the Czech Republic.

If you missed the glorious tree colours and landscapes which inspired me, do go and enjoy some Czech Autumn Splendour.

These are by no means "finished" paintings... they're all watercolour sketches and experiments and part of the learning curve.

There was a sneak peek of this first tree in my previous post, but here it is in full.
















I got the little music book at the bric-a-brac stall in the market of a neighbouring village.  It's not a large book - about 7.5 x 5.5 inches - so the music is tiny.  It's for people to study or follow along with the score, as opposed to playing from it.

I'm afraid neither of those activities was on my list... it was all about the paint!














Lots of old book pages are very porous, sucking up moisture, but there's a slight sheen on these, so you do get quite a lot of play with the paint.














Once the first layer had dried, I added some more leafy splendour and some delicate splatter.













I was travelling very craft-light this time.  Just a small box of watercolours, some charcoal, a pot of gesso and a couple of ink pads (Vintage Photo Distress and Coffee Archival)...














... and the only stamps I travelled with were my own set of autumnal quotes (PaperArtsy EAB04 The Autumn Edition).












I figured that if I had time for any crafting, it was likely to be autumnal...

I love how the glow of the leaves still reveals the music underneath.

















Some slightly deeper ground shadows, and some more detailing on the trunk, and I decided it was best left alone.










In the previous post, you saw some of the glorious countryside near to where I'll be migrating to - but of course all you really need to do is step outside the back door.  This is the view from the terrace at the back of the house.

And this is my very quick and rough attempt to capture the colours I could see as I sat sipping my coffee one morning, looking down into the garden, past the neighbour's house (on the right) and shed (on the left), across the valley to the hills beyond.

It's a double page spread in the Strathmore Visual Journey 5.5 x 8 journal - on cold press watercolour paper.  (I had that with me too.)








One of these days, I may try some sketching before I start, but this was just paint to paper.  I know the perspectives are maybe a little skewed, but it was the mood as much as anything else I wanted to try to grab, and particularly the glow of that plum tree.













I like the sunlit glare of the white wall of the shed - though that tree is definitely not in the right place.  Ah well, artist's licence, right?!













This one is really very rough and loose, even at the end - though in some ways I like the very earliest, roughest sketch most of all.








When I tried to get too precise, I liked it less, but there was a definite lesson learned about being braver with my darks.  I added the extra shadows and deep darks after I'd looked again properly.
  

They give the whole thing much more depth, and as a result a better glow to the white wall, and for a first landscape from life I don't hate it completely.  It's good practice with the watercolours and with looking, but not my favourite thing to do so far.











And finally, an imaginary stand of trees, again in the Strathmore journal...

I like it when it's coming from my imagination - then I can't beat myself up for getting it "wrong".  It is what it is.

These ones were also paint to paper, but there's a bit of added pen work later on, using my dipping pen and walnut ink (oh yes - I had brought those too... not as light in my packing as I'd remembered!).

Again, it started with a very loose bit of watercolour washing and daubing, and I gradually added more detailing as layers dried.

















I love the drift of golden colour into the sky - all done by the paint itself, of course, just doing what watercolour does.















But it seems a good reflection of the soaring spirits I experienced every time I looked across the valley, or we drove through the changing colours of the Czech landscape.
















I do like the detail of the penwork (and I really enjoyed doing it)... 















... and the shadows under the trees seem to work pretty well.  Of course there had to be splatter.













I'm not sure it needed the quote, but I quite like having it there.  And after all this is Words and Pictures.

And the autumnal glow of the trees makes me almost as happy on the page as it does in real life, so that's a win.








Oh look, I've just found a lovely panorama of the view from the terrace... here you go!  This was a week or so later - the plum tree's leaves have mostly fallen, and the hedge has been trimmed, but the trees in the valley are starting to show their best colours. Try clicking on the photo for the full screen effect.  

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  I have finally made it back into the craft room for the first time since my return, so I'm hoping that will trigger some more making to share with you soon.  And I'll be round for a catch up too... I've been missing you all!  Have a lovely weekend, whatever you're up to, and I'll see you soon.

I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house.
Nathaniel Hawthorne

I'd like to join in with Paint Party Friday - a gathering I've always admired from afar, but haven't really been "painty" enough to play along much before now!