I´m having a week off right now, Easter holidays, and I´m using every day to paint for the exhibition in July. Today I finished the largest watercolour painting I have ever done, 1.40 meters wide (approx. 55”). The image above is a detail from the work in progress, with some tape still on it.
It´s been a really interesting experience to work this big. 80 percent of the time I worked with this painting I spent doubting that it would ever become a good one. Watercolours are slow to work with, and always dry lighter than when you put them down on paper, so the painting constantly looked too pale until the very finishing touches. Then, suddenly, it came alive, the contrasts were there, as I wanted them, and I feel quite happy with it.
I work a lot with patterns in my paintings. I love constructing repeating patterns, cut them out as stencils (well, the cutting part isn´t that fun, but it´s necessary) and use them in every way possible. I cut this little rhomb shaped flower yesterday, and used it in a painting today.
Edit: the piece is 55”, not 55′ as I had first written. How am I supposed to know how many little apostrophes you need to say “inches” in Am. English? Why don´t you guys just adopt the metric system, like everybody else? ; )