"Duffy's Pond" Merry Christmas!

One more before Christmas. 

This is a commission for a young lady who wanted to 

have her son and two dogs in a painting. 

Her son is #19. 

I had fun with this one. 

It had been a long time since doing a watercolour 

and very much enjoyed working with this medium again. 

This painting is off to Kamloops B.C 

to be placed under someone's tree. 

12X20 on Arches CP paper. 

"Barnumtown"

This was another re-do of an older painting i had laying around. I'm finding that by re-doing these pieces it is showing me that often there is so much more that can be done and perhaps i am hanging incomplete paintings. I was at a workshop on the weekend with Brent Laycock and a fellow student asked him, "when do you know that a piece is finished?". He said, "when i cannot do anymore to it.". Also by doing this i realized a lot of the paintings i had done did not have enough dark value in them and tended to be in a safe zone of mostly middles. There needs to be contrast and the tension created between the darks and the lights can be dramatic. As in life, we do need those shadows don't we?
I'm excited to put to use these new understandings and look forward to the next discovery.
This is watercolor on Arches 300 lb. cold pressed paper approximately 8" X 22".

"Santa Maria" & "Pittenweem"

"Pittenweem" is a little Scottish coastal village i enjoy visiting on Google.  I love the names they have for their towns. They are so poetic.....