Jean Haines Painting Challenge

 I was astounded on opening my email this morning to find that I was one of five winners of the Jean Haines Painting Challenge in the British magazine, Painters Online. The theme was the use of the color yellow. There were 203 entries altogether, which makes me feel even more honored to be one of the winners.

Special thanks to Laura who suggested I enter my painting in this event.

Here is the link to the other winners and all the entries in the challenge. 

Tangled Woodland

I do like the color combinations in this watercolor experiment. I used quinacridone burnt orange, Prussian green and quinacridone gold. For the sky I used the same colors very diluted and added plastic wrap to the wet paint for subtle texture. The branches on the left were done with sepia ink. For the textures in the lower half I used cheese cloth and a really nice netting that I found at a local fabric store that had more uneven spaces. I tore and pulled it out of shape a little to get a more natural design. See photo below of the netting pattern. You can see the texture from this pattern in the gold and green areas of the painting. In the upper green area I used cheese cloth. Inspired by reading Ann Blockley and attempting to make it my own.