Kim's Watercolors

This was my first 'real' watercolor painting I've done on this trip. This was done up in the Dolomites. We had been hiking around all day, and I had been painting botanicals of wildflowers only up to this point. We managed to find the river, and followed a trail alongside it until we came upon a large rock jutting out in the middle of the river. Joel & I jumped out onto the rock and saw this amazing tree blazing at the end of the river before it turned to the left. Blown away, I just had to paint it. We st down on the rock and painted away until we froze to death. This one was fun as I didn't do any ink work first...just painted it. Getting the color of the water was really tough, as it was a crazy grey green blue from glacier melt. Really incredible. All of the following watercolors are done on heavyweight watercolor paper.


We've been learning watercolor in class at night, and I can't tell you how much I've been struggling with it. Mixing colors has been a total ordeal...I've been struggling with applying the paint, how to layer, get colors right...everything has been really tough. For some reason, when I went to Venice, all of that disappeared (except for the color mixing..but at least it's fun now). I really loosened up and started to 'feel it' when I painted.


This painting represents an epiphony for me. I was totally captivated by this statue across the canal from St. Marks. I wandered alone all over until I finally found the base of it, past the Guggenheim at the edge of the island opposte St. Mark's. The road right under it was closed, so I made my way out to the docks. I sat down on the edge of a dock on a step and began sketching this, very loosely and quickly (very unusual for me!). I think it was the first time I really 'felt it' when I started painting...I wasn't worrying about doing it or how it would look...I just painted away and enjoyed myself.



This painting was done VERY QUICKLY on the side of a canal in Venice. I put my water cup in my bag, my sponge and paper on top of my bag, and held my palette in my hand and painted this standing up. It was my first really loose painting..I had a great time doing it. The colors were just mind blowing.


Venice building reflection on the grand canal.









Sorrento Cliff painting....this was done from a dock in the Sorrento bay. There were a series of caves and old Roman structures built into the base of the cliff.










This is Mt. Vesuvius with Naples in the foreground....this was the view from breakfast at our hotel in Sorrento! It's hard to believe, but the water was really that blue. The colors of the mountain were incredible.