This is just a quick update to say that we made the transition today from the old Forum to the new technology called 'Groups.' We are pleased to say that it looks as though it will be a viable option for us, now and in the future (providing the tech teams leave us alone for a while!) Thanks to those of you who have already signed in and are starting to find their feet. Our observations so far are:

1. The transition initiated an email to us for every post and comment we had made on the forum....hundreds have been deleted by Olly, but our thoughts must go to Edo, who probably has thousands to go through! We had no warning of this, and so to anyone that has also received a crazy number of emails today from us, then please accept our apologies for the inconvenience. These are not the…

A little background about this painting.

I photographed this small town called Aerdt situated in the south of the Dutch province Gelderland, sketched the scene en plein air and painted under the canopy of our caravan.

A bit of my workflow.

I planned my wash sequences and colors. I wanted to keep the red roofs bright to make them stand out and bring in some brightness.

I started out with the sky bringing it down to the rooftops, then painted the rooftops and when dried brought in the background trees remembering to “define the edge just once with the application of the darkest tone” carefully cutting around the dormers and chimneys. To keep some visual interest I decided to keep one roof grey to prevent monotony. It also matches with the church roofs. For the foreground I started out light and gradually brought in the darker burnt sienna tone in…

This is a recent watercolour, measuring approx 15 inches by 22 inches, painted on Arches rough textured paper. My intention was to create a feeling of 'coldness' in both the sky and the landscape below.