I should have been ironing, but it's a beautiful day and the white azalea bush is in full bloom, so I thought I'd carry on with the quest to learn to paint white subjects in watercolour. I had to do quick sketches in my accordian sketchbook, as, really, it's piling up into a huge mountain (the washing). What I think I learnt from these two - the first rather carefully done with much concentration and squinting, the second dashed off while waiting for the washes on the first to dry - is, not to squint and concentrate so hard...I prefer the second one...and fewer but larger areas, or shapes, of pure white ie. the paper, seems to produce more of the clean, sunlit look I'm after. I still have to work on the subtle colour changes within the white, and tone and shadow and some more soft edges... The dog felt it beholden upon him to bark and wildly chase after everyone who walked past our front gate, near which I was sitting on an upturned bucket, so any interesting textural effects are from him kicking up sand into my palette.
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