Sketch of the hills to north of the Strontian road.

Above some pictures that I've been working on this week they are loosely based on photos. They were  fun to do and good practice in trying out different techniques and compositions. I hope to have some of them for sale in my Etsy shop Lochaberart soon.
This morning whilst posting this I have been watching  some watercolour painting DVDs and am struck by the vastly different approaches there are to the medium.Watercolour painting seems to have as many different styles as there are artists.I recently purchased one of Susan Harrison-Tustain's  DVDs. Her paintings are absolutely exquisite. She painstakingly builds up multiple glazes of paint in a very  controlled manner.She will place two washes of pure water before even using any pigment (her priming method) Then comes a yellow underwash then glaze after glaze. The result is pictures that glow with soft beauty. On the other hand artists such as Alvaro Castagnet pile on the colours with gay abandon letting wash flow into wash yet somehow managing to create a coherent  picture at the end. I love the enthusiasm and exuberance of this guy! His obvious love of the physical act of painting is a real inspiration. Joseph Zbukvic is another master who can create magic out of loose washes in dull greys with apparently accidental snippets of white paper bringing sparkle to the picture. These last two let the paint mix on the paper and rarely go back to correct adjust a wash. David Curtis does an underwash then places loose variegated washes on top , he is probably my favourite  contemporary watercolour landcape artist. He does a lot of painting en plein air and I'm very envious of his skill. Even having studied several of his DVDs I can't understand how he produces such stunning pictures.Also he pays more attention to reality than Joseph Zbukvic and Alvaro Castagnet. However if I could paint nearly as well as any of these people I would be a happy man .