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DavidOReilly — Princes Street, Edinburgh
Published: 2013-08-15 15:22:55 +0000 UTC; Views: 521; Favourites: 15; Downloads: 0
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Description
Watercolour. 40cm x 30cm.Really struggled with this subject, and this was my second attempt. Not too happy with it.
The sky colour doesn't sit well with the rest of the painting, the detail is clumsy (was trying for a 'loose' style), the trees on the right went very wrong, and I was too scared to try for the faces on the foreground figures! Coward!
I do, at least, like the buses on the left hand side and the general colour scheme, so it was worth doing!
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Comments: 11
Are you serious?! This is the piece that you didn't think was good enough to put in your gallery???
Here's my take on it:
The sky looks AMAZING and fits VERY well with the painting. In fact, in the thumbnail, that's one of the first things I noticed...the beautiful transition from sky to buildings.
I don't think the detail looks clumsy at all. It also fits the painting well. I am quite impressed with the detail.
I only WISH I could get my trees to look like the trees on the right (or left 
And the faces in the foreground don't NEED detail. Sometimes less is more
I think that you are "too close" to the painting and the image you had in your mind for what you thought it would look like when you were done. I realize that the artist has to be satisfied with his/her work, but we rarely are. Looking at it as an outsider, I think you did a spectacular job. The detail is perfect...the colors are warm and inviting...there is nothing clumsy about it. I can feel the warmth from the sun just by looking at this. Reminds me of a sunny fall day on the college campus I used to attend.
You are a very talented artist and I think this piece deserves to be in your gallery!!!! So there 
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Well, that's me told
I really appreciate the input Anne, you raise some good points. I think perhaps I am too close to it, and yeah, it wasn't what I had in mind when I started, so it certainly didn't fit in with my vision of the painting!
I just wish I hadn't used the blue in the sky, I think it needs some reds/orange, to give reason for those colours being in the rest of the picture.
Hmmm, well maybe I'll pop it in my gallery then.
I used rock-salt on the wet paint on trees and just worked with the resullting effects. Have a go Anne, it's quite fun, albeit initially unpredictable!
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Actually, I particularily like the trees on the right. I was looking at them and immediately wondered how you made them
As far as I am concerned, the "missing faces" are no problem. My first impression was not that there's people running around having no faces/personality or something like that. I think it fits really nicely with the style of the whole image.
I am not very good at the "loose" style, as I am usually far too focused on details. I would not even dare an attempt on such a picture 
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Well, that's unexpected praise, but thanks very much!
For the trees I painted in the shadows of the leaf clusters, let it dry, then ran some darker paint in, then threw some crumbled rock-salt and let it do it's thing. Then painted in some branches.
I've tried salt in the past and not had much luck but I think it's a matter of getting to know how it behaves (I've used it today on another picture and am liking the results).
"I am not very good at the "loose" style, as I am usually far too focused on details"
That's how I would decribe myself too
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Ah, I see. I used salt a couple of times, too, but never really liked the result. Seems like there's a secret to it, because when I see pictures of other artists who also used it, the result always looks far better for some reason. I switched to carefully spraying water on the semi-dry pigments, which basically leaves the same result...
No praise where none is deserved
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Yeah I know what you mean; there's some awesome watercolours about where salt was used!
Interesting, I'll have a go at the spraying - did you use a pump action spray, the sort which household cleaners come in?
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Yes, exactly. However, I would not recommend to buy one that had cleaner or something else than water in it before. I can imagine such stuff would leave stains on the paper. I buy them without any liquid inside, they come really cheap over here, like 1 EUR or even less. The nice thing is that you can control the water output, and therewith the size of the water drops--the bigger the drops, the better the effect on the paper, as they literally fall onto the pigments and kind of "bomb" them in all directions. It is fun, too, although you have to have the paper lay flat, otherwise it would all get blurry. So best spray and leave the room for the next hour or two
I paint with Kremer pigments, if that helps. I did not test it on other watercolour, yet...
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Cool, sounds worth trying, thanks!
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