Watercolour

I tried (and failed dismally) to capture the way the purple Jacaranda flowers seemed to be on fire from the light of the translucent creamy yellow sunset on my drive home from work. That is why I am going to art school! It is so lovely to see natural beauty in this urbanised, polluted world.

This painting was my first foray in gouache. The background is painted in traditional watercolours and the Jacaranda tree is painted in diluted gouache. I was inspired to use these mediums by the watercolourists of the late 1800s to the early twentieth century. In particular, Ellis Rowan, Sydney Long and John R. Neill(Royal Illustrator of the Wizard of Oz books).

Yester Gallery has a good collection of Australian and English Watercolours and Paul Giambarba's 100 Years of Illustration is a beautiful and informative blog on 100 years of illustration (funnily enough).

I am constantly amazed by the detail and life in these watercolours and won't be able to emulate these artists in one hundred years, but hopefully by learning some techniques at art school I will improve and be better able to represent the beauty I see.