after Alan Owen (posting 7th June) by Carol Hitchman

Brilliant Carol!!! You've done a terrific job of Alan's challenge, lots of counter change between lights and darks, great greens, fabulous sky and good depth. I hope you are proud of yourself!

As Fiona says, you have done a terrific job here with Alan's challenge. You asked for comments, the drawing is very good, sky works well and I like the pale, distant church and trees - gives a good feeling of depth. Fiona has rightly said that you have got good counter change, with the dark trees surrounding the barn / farm house. I feel the trees look a little 'cut out', it takes time to get strong, yet flowing washes, practice them again and again using more water and paint. You could add a little water to the edges of the trees and try to lift a little colour off to make them appear softer. Lastly, the field on the right looks a little weak, you could dampen that and add stronger colour, as you have on the left. As experienced watercolourists (such as Alan), tell us, it all comes down to practice, practice and yet more practice!

Thank you so much Fiona for encouraging me to try this and for your enthusiastic response to my effort. I have to admit I thoroughly enjoyed the exercise although it took a lot of experimenting to get the greens as near as possible. Stephen many thanks for your constructive comments - as a relative beginner this is the constructive advice I welcome and plenty of practice will follow. Does anyone know what size Alan's pictures are? I'm still working on quite small pictures -this one is 7x5 inches.

Hi Carol, I think Alan works on paper size 15" x 10".

I think this is a lovely watercolour, and the building is perfect. :-)