Dawn/Dusk at Caraguilhes

I haven't been drinking any rosé lately - the current weather doesn't really work with cold rosé - or is it that cold rosé doesn't work with this weather? Anyways, I was looking through my stock of inspiration photos, looking for a suitable subject to apply the six-way wash watercolour technique from the Nita Engle book I mentioned in an earlier post, and found this gorgeous picture I picked up from the Château de Caraguilhes website a while back.

So I set off to work last Sunday afternoon, working on the back of a failed project, and not even bothering to stretch my paper properly, as I was thinking I was only trying out a technique, not painting a real painting. And I was using leftover paint from Trees in Yosemite, so surely it wasn't going to be worth the effort... Well, I'm sorry now, aren't I, because I'm probably never going to be able to paint such a smooth sky ever again! And I don't think that pressing the paper under layers of heavy books is going to iron out all that buckling. (I'm going to try anyway, but I don't think that's going to work). Ah well!