Thunderstorm and whooper swans.

It's raining, the sky is ever so often lit up by lightning, and the thunder is rolling along above. I am sitting quite cosy with a cup of tea on the balcony and enjoying the spectacle! 

This is the cosy corner I have made myself on the balcony. A comfy chair, a small table and a few plants. And now in the evening, the windows are wide open and the candles are lit!

This week I was a few days down south in Beihai. My husband had to be there 2 weeks for work, so I join him for a few days. It was hot and humid. I made use of the hotel's gym and pool, and we found a great new seafood restaurant. I had my watercolours with me, so I also got some work done during the days.

This is a small quick sketch I made of Whooper swans grazing on a field. (reference photo found on Pixabay) I knew I wanted to do a watercolour painting out of this, so I wanted to get the feel of colours and rhythm down. Next step was to decide on the composition.

I chose to only paint a few swans and to mute the colours quite a lot. It is so much fun painting with watercolour on a gessoed surface. The paint is not absorbed at all into the paper, and it gives a totally different feel and texture than when painting on watercolour paper. Anyway, I was happy with this composition and colour scheme, so onwards to making it a painting.

I used cold pressed cotton paper for my first attempt, and I thought that the surface was too rough. I also did something weird to the left, not sure what I was thinking...

My second try. This time on hot pressed cotton paper, which is very smooth. I like this much better. It is a little weird because when I first tried out the hot pressed cotton paper I was not impressed by it at all. But now I am liking it better and better. It still doesn't take watercolour washes as good as cold pressed paper, but I do like the smoother surface a lot! This painting is quite small, 26x19cm, so I want to make a bigger one.

Next small sketch in my art journal: flying swans against a blue-ish treeline. I started again with a full-page painting. This seems to be a good start for me. To start with first painting a full-scale composition, and then developing it from there.

This is the second page for the flying swans. Next week I will try and paint this bigger on watercolour paper!

Northern Hawk-owl. I have wanted to paint one of these birds for a while now, and I finally found a good reference picture of one on Pixabay. This is again a small watercolour sketch in my art journal.

Here is the same owl on watercolour paper. I really like the background.

Unfortunately, it didn't turn out so well. I began painting the bird with much too saturated colours, so I lost the transparency of the colours from the start. I gave up on it. I still very much like the composition and the colours, so I will simply repaint it. First I will choose a much bigger size paper (this one is also 26x19cm) if I give it another go with watercolours, but then I think I might just paint this as an acrylic and oil painting instead. I did learn a lot from this, so even if I deem the painting to be unsuccessful, it still was a good painting experience. I often learn more from my less successful paintings than I do from my 'good' paintings.

The thunderstorm has calmed down now. It was quite spectacular while it lasted, so I am happy I could sit outside here and enjoy it! Now it is time for another cup of tea, and some video editing.