Albany Bulb Beach and Golden Gate Fields in Watercolor

I wanted to try to bring to life the image in my mind from painting last weekend at Albany Bulb because  I didn’t feel I’d really captured it in the oil painting I did.  Since I’m going to be teaching a watercolor class starting  October 17, I thought I’d give it a go in watercolor.

There are so many different approaches one can take when working in watercolor, from very slowly and precisely painting every detail, to working in many layers of transparent glazes, to loose, free and juicy washes, and everything in between. I like all approaches, and especially enjoy the meditative  experience of painting each petal of a flower separately, taking weeks to finish a painting. But tonight I just wanted to go for it, working quickly and completing the painting in one session.  I started at the sky and worked my way down.

For reference I used the image in my mind to Photoshop the photo I’d taken, moving things, deleting things, changing the colors to try to get it to look like I remember the day.

Perhaps the painting needs more or perhaps I should have stopped sooner? I won’t know for sure until I look at it for a few days (or until one of you kindly points out what I’ve missed!)

Meanwhile I have several posts just crying out to be written but this has been a very busy week, with day job overload and catching up on things so they will have to wait until tomorrow.