Loose Watercolor Grapes & Cantaloupe Melons

One thing I’ve observed and struggled with when it comes to loose painting is deciding what to include and what not to include in order to convey what something is.

When attempting to paint loose, this is where we can get lost. It’s easy to default towards painting exactly what we see...or at least attempting to.

I usually paint from reference photos and with photographs, you get A LOT of information. All the details. All the colors. It’s a lot.

When painting loose, I don’t want to paint all of that and I don’t need to paint all of that.

There are areas that I’ll leave less detailed and other areas I’ll focus on and provide more information in order to convey the story.

Painting loosely in part, is an exercise in stripping down what you want to convey to only the essential information.

In fact, when painting this month’s #paintwithmechallenge painting, I wasn’t sure if I left out *too* much detail when painting the cantaloupes. I asked a few friends and it seems like the melons are still recognizable!  It was a good reminder of how little information we need in order to understand what something is.

Here’s the final painting & process video for you to check out:

SUPPLIES USED IN THIS VIDEO:

• Saunders Waterford 140lb Cold Press (cut from sheet) 

• Princeton Neptune Round Brush Size 10 

• Daniel Smith Paints 

  • Hansa Yellow Medium

  • Sap Green

  • Pyrrol Scarlet

  • Payne’s Grey

  • Burnt Sienna

• Pencil 

REFERENCE PHOTO

• Daria Shevtsova from Pexels
  

If you’re curious about my most frequently used supplies, you can see all of them right here.

Thank you so much for reading and watching!
Susan

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