Venice Sketches #12 and 13
I'm still sketching Venice scenes from my old photos in anticipation of our upcoming trip to Venice. Painting canal water and showing the texture/decay of building surfaces are scarey to me, so I worked on both of those watercolor painting skills in these two paintings.
I started this project with two 30 inch strips of watercolor paper that I folded into accordion booklets. Since I didn't carry any image over the folds, I'm now planning to cut each strip into two folios and bind these sketches into a small book with 4 folios and 16 pages. This will be the first time that I sketch/paint first and bind into a book later. I may decide that it is the perfect method for travel sketching.
The first 4 sketches and the accordion booklet can be seen here.
Comments
That concept of making the drawings or paintings and then creating a book from them is exactly what I'm doing now! I just started, and it's very freeing to simply draw on a loose sheet rather than be restricted by the binding and how the book stays open, or doesn't. Good for you for being adventurous in your watercolor, too!
Posted by: Liz Adams | April 10, 2012 2:55 PM
Shirley, great sketches! Very smart to use your old photos for reference in anticipation of your upcoming trip. I think you may have hit on something, painting first and binding later! Jane LaFazio is doing something similar in a class i'm taking, binding the notebook with ring binders (removing spiral binding and using rings to hold pages together, there by allowing manipulation of the 'book'). I look forward to seeing what you do on your trip!
Posted by: Carol C | April 11, 2012 9:26 AM
These are lovely, Shirley. You nailed the texture of the buildings even though it was difficult. I also really like the reflections in the canal water.
Posted by: Lynn | April 12, 2012 12:06 PM
Sounds like a good way to take your paper for sketching...it will be smaller & lighter than a normal sketchbook. Great sketches by the way!
Posted by: Cathy Holtom | April 13, 2012 7:12 AM