Watercolors in Barbados

People on the Beach - Watercolor

I am an oil painter, and oil paint is a very forgiving medium. If I make a mistake or don't like my result, I can easily paint over the mess and mostly salvage the painting.  

Waterlilies in Watercolor

Watercolor on the other hand is, to me, the most difficult medium.   I have the utmost respect for water-colorists that can produce clean, lovely gems that look effortless.   I say all this because I brought my watercolors on vacation and  I don't have much to show for it.   

I tried hibiscus, beach people and a couple of subjects from photos I brought with me.  Shown are the "best" ones.  It was a great trip and although it was hard to face winter again, at least my oil paints are waiting for me!

Painting and Sketching in Tropical Paradise

In the beautiful island country of Jamaica, the delights were many: people, music, balmy breezes, cuisine and most of all, a rainbow of vibrant and colorful scenes.   I longed to paint with my oils, but this vacation was designed around the theme of "R&R."  Dealing with wet oil paintings in a beautiful hotel setting would have been too scary, and frankly stressful.    My fallback was watercolor and sketching, adequate substitutes and actually good for brushing up on different skills.    

There were many talented musicians strolling along the beach.  They periodically pausing to perform a few songs for tips.   They stayed long enough to be captured in pencil, which I share here.  Sketching on the fly was good practice, especially for a plein air painter like myself.

My favorite musician was Donnavan Darymple, who also performed some evenings at the hotel

We snorkeling along a reef about a mile from the hotel with local guides.   Back ashore, painting the underwater world with watercolor seemed pretty natural. Although I do find watercolor challenging, letting the wet colors run together was fun, as was playing with the masking fluid.      

Underwater I

Underwater II

Underwater III

Bullfrog

The frog is a New England "feller" painted from a photograph.   I actually painted this one first, as I was getting re-accustomed to watercolor.   As you can see, I approached it very much like an oil painting (covering the whole surface, layering, accentuating the darks).

Under the Shade Tree

One very nice aspect of the hotel's beach was that it had a large swathe of shade trees.    There was no problem shifting our chairs from shade to sunshine and back again.   This painting was done from under the tree where I spent most of my vacation.

Watercolor by Paul Thomas

 Last but not least is a painting done by Jamaican Watercolorist Paul Thomas.  He and I had a nice conversation at our beach where he was set up selling his beautiful depictions of the local scenes.   His hummingbird paintings were amazing - I wish I had taken a photo!    I gave him a block of watercolor paper as it had come to my attention that getting supplies on the island was not easy.   He most graciously painted the scene shown here.   He sure knows how to mix that beautiful turquoise that I was having a hard time achieving!  Thank you Paul!

Tropical Watercolors - Loose

View from Mars

Yellow Lady Slipper

I was fortunate to be able to travel to Aruba this year and just like in years past, I brought my watercolors.  Watercolors, although not my preferred medium - provided a nice to change.   I used 4x6 inch and 6x9 inch Canon brand blocks, but I relaxed my past ways.  Rather than using photos or framing tight little scenes,  I just tried to match scenery color, only loosely matching the view.   I let the colors flow into one another using lots of Caribbean Sea water.   


This was more like playing around and experimenting, with no expectation of a worthwhile end product. What was worthwhile was more the process and relaxation of staring at swirling color starting to dry under the strong Equator sun.

These few are the "loosest" of the watercolors.  A forthcoming post will include some "tighter" watercolors.




Yellow Flower Spray





Sea Monster Emerging at Sunset





Tropical Fish

Beautiful Vieques

Esperanza Harbor I

Here are the last couple of tropical vacation watercolors.   Our lodging was just to the west of the small town of Esperanza and overlooked its harbor.   From the perspective of weather, our week fell in the "transitional" season, which meant periods of tropical clouds blowing through.   For most of the time however, the sky and water was a mesmerizing turquoise that is never seen north of the forty degrees latitude.




Esperanza Harbor II

Los Caballos - Horses

Horse Photo through Jeep Windshield

Esperanza Riding Club Herd from our Porch

There are painters that specialize in painting horses and I am not one of them.   On vacation in Vieques, Puerto Rico, there were opportunities to observe horses - everywhere.    We learned that there are approximately 9,000 residents on the island and there are 10,000 horses.   The single lane access to our lodging was a long, steep and winding dirt path down to the property.   Our first introduction to their predominance was when we turned onto this road in our 4WD Jeep, a very large horse was calmly ascending as we descended.  We came face-to-face with him on a stretch bound by thick brush and trees.  What happened next was obvious - and he fully expected it - we backed out and let him pass.  After all this was his property, not ours.

So although I have never really painted horses - like the mangoes - they were an integral and fascinating part of the landscape.   An objective view of their silhouettes revealed that they spend most of their time grazing, which looks like an upside-down (squarish)horseshoes.  These watercolors don't do justice to their muscular form and beauty, but it was fun to do these quick studies.






More horses



Bella

Looking West from Hector and Mary's