Aquarel based upon sketch by Alison Warner

I stumbled upon the blog of Alison Warner who makes some really beautiful aquarel paintings. Her original is (obviously) the one on the right.

When i asked for permission to use her aquarels for making some studies, she suggested that i draw and paint things from real life rather than copying the works of other artists, and I agree that making originals has more artistical merit (unsless, perhaps if it’s some kind of paraphrase that adds or comments upon something in the original).
As os now, however, i am trying to learn some techniques. Water colour, especially seems like something where it’s useful to know the “craft” before going ahead and composing or painting what you see. I find that looking at lines, dots and the mixture of colours by other artists helps me understand the object in another way than looking directly at the object. For instance, I’d like to do some studies on some other pencil-drawings in addition to my photo-studies, because i haven’t got a good feeling for “abstraction”.. If i look at a photo, I can try my best to copy what i see and to be excact, but by doing this, i serve the same purpose as a camera. What I’d like to do, is to use drawing to putting focus on some things, that i might detail, and to “abstract” other things – trees in the background – that i want to be less important in my drawing. I don’t master this very well and i guess it’s part of the reason that i do studies of other people’s work. I don’t want to draw like them, but i want to use my pencil to understand their work in order to develop my own “style” – some day. For now, i really enjoy studying the works of other artists, and i find it helpful to grow my artistical “vocabulary”. I will, however follow the advice given, and go ahead and draw something from real life – the way i see it!

Thanks to Alison Warner for letting me do this study!