Little house in the prairie

Well, sponge painting is not as easy as you'd think! While my little trial trees looked lovely, I wasn't able to reproduce the effect on a proper painting. Where I went wrong, I'm really not sure. The colours are lovely, but it lacks structure and shape. What happened, I think, is that I got colour-happy and didn't create an individual shape for each tree.

I still went on with the rest of the painting, as I wanted to experiment with how I'd paint the little house. As it turns out, it became the centrepiece of this watercolour. I had really intended the trees to be the centre of interest, but it didn't work out that way. The trees ended up looking more like fire actually, which is quite interesting, if that was the effect I had been looking for!

You'll notice also that I didn't paint the lime-green tree beside the house. It's not that I forgot, no, no. I was trying to use some of the tips from Powerful Watercolour Landscapes, and as I wanted the trees on the hill to be my "What" (the focus of the painting), I decided to eliminate the bright-green tree altogether. Well, the little house became the "What" instead (and, yes, I know the roof isn't quite right - I'll fix that in the next version). I've got a lot to learn! We'll get there eventually!