Sandra Woods
Art despite pain

In the news

In the weekly virtual watercolour painting classes that I've been taking, we learn at least one different technique or challenge each week.
Then every second or third week each student in this intermediate-advanced class email one painting per weekly challenge to our instructor.
She then provides her feedback and suggestions, called a "critique" in art circles.
These critiques are very very helpful, particularly when learning a new technique.
These are the some of the paintings that I've just submitted for critique later this week, all in very different styles.
These were all painted from my own photos, with some in-my-mind editing to improve the compositions; raising the height of mountains, moving some buildings, changing the colour of a barn to that of a prettier one a bit further down the road...
Although I ensured that my photos were somewhat similar to the sample photos provided by our instructor, I prefer to paint from my own references or photographs.
The watercolor below is from an area of old farms, just a thirty-minute drive from my home.
In this one, my challenge was to "use a straight road to show perspective, with one midground + several distant background buildings".


Next, in a completely different style, is an abandoned and about-to-implode barn.
I ride past this one on my bicycle almost every day during Montréal's warmer months, and have been watching the bulge in its side wall grow from year to year.
The goal for this painting was to "create an impression of texture on a wood surface, in a close-up or from-below perspective". And to paint darker than my usual style, as well.


I'm curious to see what my instructor will have to say in her critique of these two watercolours, and expect to learn as much from her comments as I did from painting these.
Given that I couldn't even draw a stick figure - let one a building - when I began learning to paint just two years ago, I'm quite pleased with these two farmland watercolours.