Swimming Pool, North Carolina USA

When you think of the southern US big blue skies come to mind, but how about swimming pools? This was a swimming pool right outside of a motel, the brilliant blue contrasted nicely against the pale sky and green grass. There was also a flowering tree of some sort, not sure what the species was. This is a good example of how an otherwise uninteresting scene can make a nice painting. The composition worked well with the strong vertical lamp post against the horizontal roof.

When using watercolour, painting white fences is complicated...painting black fences is easy. The reason is that there is no white paint in traditional watercolour, so you would have to paint IN BETWEEN all of the fence posts, which is incredibly difficult. On the other hand, painting black (or very dark) fences, you just put it on top of the existing scene. In this example, I finished the pool and area around the pool, and when it was dry, painted the dark fence over top. Unfortunately if you make a mistake it is difficult to fix, so just relax and plunge in (the pool?) !

5x7" cold press, 1999