Riverside

Lovely colours in this Riverside Watercolour Michael, and the path of the river leads us into the scene really well

Post more, Michael! There are wonderful, restrained and subtle tones in this - and I particularly like the loose handling of the major tree and its strong darks.

Striking painting - very fresh and clean. For me, what really makes it is that patch of purple on the left hand bank - clever move!

Thanks all - the charcoal work was done last as you may guess.

Ah. as usual Robert has summed it up for me! This is lovely. Thea has mentioned the purple ....

Yes the purple and patch of pink opposite caught my eye.

I like this looser style Michael ( perhaps a hint of Alan Owen influence?). As Robert says, the tree is really good. When I've tried watercolour and charcoal, I've alwasy drawn first with the charcoal and then added the washes, can end up very muudy! This looks fresher, must give it a try!

Michael are there maybe too many hard edges e.g. the large tree? I take the point about the violet flowers on the bank but does it need cut back a bit? Interested on what others think because the wash and pastel technique has lots of possibilities. I used it in my Storm Clouds Glencoe- did itnwork there. If not please say so!

Alan - I intentionally included the sharp edges as this was the 'style' I was trying to achieve - I guess its in the eye of the beholder. As its very much impressionistic I wanted to avoid too much fiddly detail. When I put in the violet wash on the left it wasn't intended to be anything in particular other than a colour introduction which I hope worked - its interesting that others interpret it as being a bank of flowers. I think if anything I was a bit too heavy handed with the washes which it looks a little muddy - I was trying to achieve the effect I got in the earlier posting 'Forest Glade'. It was only an experiment which will never see its way into a frame but was an interesting experiment.

Michael thanks for reply. AFAS Storms Clouds. Good point. I try to remember hard edges need soft edges.