Watercolor Painting ~ Walk Findings, Caribbean Treasures

Painting with watercolor is a hobby that I’ve enjoyed since around 2001. I took a class at the local community college and have been hooked since. The challenge has been, finding the time or allowing myself the time, to paint daily or even weekly. Building WordPress websites, creating logos, advertising and marketing for clients takes first priority (as it should). I’m not complaining however, I love what I do. You know it’s that life/work balance thing. Unless I’m on one of our yearly month long vacations (working vacation for me) I don’t seem to take the time evenings or weekends.

Because of that I’ve only completed one painting a year. Improvement comes from practice so improvement has come slowly.

My favorite way to paint is realism with a lots of detail which takes some time and extreme focus. But I do love the end result.

This latest painting which I called ‘Walk Findings’ was started while vacationing on Isla Cozumel last year. I’ve called it that because I collected these items while on a walk and created an arrangement of them. The results really inspired me to paint it.

The interesting thing was that when I took a photo of the arrangement indoors the background became very black. I liked the contrast, so I painted it that way. That became the most challenging part of painting. Mixing a good black, not too warm and not to cool, and a lot of it took some experimenting and time.

I’m very happy with the way that it turned out. I finally have it framed and hung in the living room and made a copy for my office, too.