More Geese

As I said yesterday the quick watercolor sketches I do are sort of like thinking out loud visually. I knew that yesterday's watercolor had many things that I would change if I did a more developed watercolor. So today I began a more developed watercolor.

I'm still experimenting with techniques though so this msy turn into just another preliminary watercolor. Today I laid down some broad washes before starting as an experiment. These may unify the painting coloristically but they also take away white areas, for good! So I ended up going back into this with white gouache. And I still need to use more, especially on the foreground goose.

I do like the lighter color it has so far. Of course I really haven't touched the geese or turtles yet. What I do there may make or break the painting. I held off on this time because I knew how complicated the background would be and wanted to work on it first. This is another new method for me. Only time will tell whether I decide that it's a wise one.

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Tuesday afternoon - The newest version is now at top. It's nearly done. I do need to knock down a couple of the white highlights a bit. But other than that I think I've done all I can do with this. It has been fun experimenting with composition. I'm not sure how I feel about how the color and values worked out. That will take awhile to see. As usual in this type of painting I don't go for great detail in the birds. I want them to be recognizable but don't want them to look like highly detailed cutouts pasted on top of a generalized background.