Tip of the Month - March 2003

In January, I was in Orlando to do a workshop based on using personal photos as reference material for a painting. My refernece photo was a river scene from Nova Scotia.

This same reference photo was used for the painting MERSEY MORNING which I had created during a watercolor demonstration in Montreal in November.

This monochrome became the basis for WINTER COUNTRY. In making the sketch and monochrome, ideas for changes in the original scene happened naturally. I started looking at the dark undergrowth and I visualized it as the opposite-light.

The idea of winter came after looking at reference photos of trees in my neighborhood.

The branches of the trees in my reference photo which were covered in leaves, changed to branches which were weighted down with snow. The water became a flat, road-like surface covered with snow.

Try a series of sketches from a favorite scene or photo. Allow a natural evolution in the images.