I made some simple still life sketches just to practice with watercolours. My main aim was to work with simple shapes and clear, intense colours. For the first attempt, I chose tomatoes and put them on a blue ceramic plate. The first sketch was made without pencil underdrawing and I found the composition unfortunate because it didn’t fill the sheet of paper.  The second sketch was based on a pencil underdrawing and I think this has improved the overall composition. I think there are also improvements in other aspects of the drawing, for example clarity of shapes and three-dimensionality of the plate. On the other hand, the first sketch has more of the nice watercolour chance effects.

For a second subject some days later, I chose strawberries, which I placed inside and around a dark gray soup bowl, using a white paper cloth to increase contrast. Again I made two sketches. The first is somewhat lighter and has more chance effects in the application of colour. The second is improved with respect to colour intensity, although it also appears a bit more controlled. I particularly like the intense red and orange tones of the strawberries.

Overall, I’m quite satisfied with these little studies, they have more of the particular qualities of watercolours and they are less overworked than earlier watercolours I made. I have already read a bit ahead in the course materials and feel somewhat intimidated by the complexities of landscape painting. Somehow I feel that I still need much practice with basic handling of watercolours. I felt quite comfortable doing these studies, despite some initial struggles with finding a subject and arranging it nicely. I hope I can retain some of the freshness of these sketches when I proceed with the landscape exercises.