Marina San Giorgio Maggiore - Original Watercolor Painting

A view across the Venice lagoon of the marina on the tip of the island San Giorgio Maggiore. The church with its campanile dominates the view behind the marina.

If you'd like to purchase this 15" x 22" original watercolor painting for $300 including shipping within the United States, you can do it securely on my website www.jimoberst.com (click on the image). There are additional paintings for sale there, and my smaller paintings are available on my other website www.weeklywatercolor.com.  Add a unique original painting to your collection!

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Artist Tip #20 - Center of Interest

The Center of Interest (COI) is a relatively small area that is more attractive than the rest of the painting, and serves as a focal point for the eye.  It's a resting place from which round-trip excursions are made to the other parts of the painting.  Without it, the painting lacks order.

The COI should answer the question "What do I want to say in my painting?".  It should be something interesting - often something alive or man-made.  Despite its name, it should not be at the center of the paper or canvas, but at a different distance from all four sides.  It should be relatively small and attractive.  Ways to make the COI outstanding include giving it the most value contrast, the highest chroma, the most detail.

In the painting Big Cat, the large catamaran has the strongest value contrast and the most interesting detail in this painting.  There's no doubt that it is the COI:

In Midlands Country House, the strong contrast between the white wall of the house and the rest of the painting, including the dark window panes, makes it clear that it is the COI:

Besides making the COI interesting and attractive, one can use other constructs to lead the eye to it, including converging lines leading to it, objects pointing to it, and people or animals facing it.

In Snowy Mantle, there are several lead-ins toward the barn, which is the COI - the road, and the fence lines on the left and right:

In Mountain View Barn, not only is there a road leading to the front of the barn, but there's a figure facing toward it as well:

Placing the COI at a good location raises the question, how should we best split up areas in our painting?  Firstly, the ratio 1:1 should be avoided, because it is boring.  Classical art suggests that the golden mean ratio of 1:1.618 is optimum, but approximately 1:2 works fine as well.  This works not only for placement of the COI, but also for placement of the horizon line, large verticals (trees), etc.  Note that in the examples above, the COI's are  not in the center of the paintings - nor are the horizon lines.  In Off Port Clyde, the tall mast is not placed in the middle of the painting, but to one side, to avoid cutting the painting into two equal pieces.  The boat here is another good example of a COI:  non-central location, high chroma, high value contrast, and interesting:

So... when you are planning your painting, think hard about your Center of Interest - is it interesting, what does it say, and how can I make it stand out - and you will be halfway home to a well-designed painting.

Along the Grand Canal - Original Watercolor Painting

This scene is of the walkway along the grand canal in Venice, in front of Saint Mark's square, near the vaporetto stop. The buildings in the background are across the grand canal - the old customs house, and Santa Maria Della Salute Church.

If you'd like to purchase this 11" x 15" original watercolor painting for $200 including shipping within the United States, you can do it securely on my website www.jimoberst.com (click on the image). There are additional paintings for sale there, and my smaller paintings are available on my other website www.weeklywatercolor.com.  Add a unique original painting to your collection!

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Artist Tip #19 - Design Guidelines: Dark Edges

We continue our conversation about Design Guidelines with a discussion of how dark edges can improve our paintings.  First, let's consider the doorstep... darkening the lower portion of our painting can bring design benefits, and fits particularly well into landscape paintings.  It can

• take a mostly mid-value painting into a more interesting value pattern
• cause the viewer to skip over the foreground and enter into the major part of the painting
• in water, it's natural for the water closest to the viewer to look darker due to the angle of sight
• on land, a dark shadow can be inserted without having to describe its source

This device is used in the painting Heading In, where the dark foreground sends the viewer directly into the middle distance of the painting:

And in On the Farm, the shadow in the foreground has the same effect.  Shadows like this can be added as a last step in a painting, and need not be closely related to any object in the painting:

The frame is a similar compositional device.  Placing mid-value or dark objects on one or both sides, and even on the top, of a painting, can have some of the same benefits as the doorstep, and some others:

• take a mostly mid-value painting into a more interesting value pattern
• keep the viewer away from the edges and trap him/her in the major part of the painting
• enhance the illusion of depth
• in urban scenes, tall buildings can provide a frame
• in rural scenes, trees can provide a frame, even at the top edge

On the Farm above shows the effectiveness of a dark tree branch at the top corner of a painting.  Besides keeping the viewer away from the top and right edge, its obvious closeup provides a feeling of depth to the rest of the painting.  Copenhagen Street Scene shows how a dark building can be used to "frame" one side of an urban painting, while also "pushing back" the rest of the painting:

And Bathhouse Row below shows a scene framed on the left and top by dark leaves, trapping the viewer in the center of the painting:

Finally, the extreme case is incorporation of darks on every edge of the painting, constructing a tunnel through which we view the major part of the composition.  The painting Twilight Sail is an example of this approach:

So, in general, dark edges can help to improve the value range, keep the viewer inside the painting and focused on the main subject, and increase the feeling of distance in the painting.  If a particular painting seems weak, simply adding some dark edges may rescue it.

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Venice Canal - Original Watercolor Painting

d0710: A gondolier plies his trade on one of the narrow canals in Venice.

If you'd like to purchase this 11" x 15" original watercolor painting for $200 including shipping within the United States, you can do it securely on my website www.jimoberst.com (click on the image). There are additional paintings for sale there, and my smaller paintings are available on my other website www.weeklywatercolor.com.  Add a unique original painting to your collection!

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Artist Tip #18 - Design Guidelines: Value Patterns, Part 2

Our last Artist Tip #17 discussed the importance of value patterns to painting design, and suggested doing one or several value sketches to plan the value pattern of our painting.  We introduced six "standard" landscape value patterns, where the foreground, mid-ground, and background each take on one of the three value ranges (light, mid, or dark).  In this tip, we'll introduce several more "standard" value patterns for your consideration.

These four very useful standard value patterns I'll call principal value patterns:

1. a large dark shape on a mid-value field
2. a small light shape on a large dark shape on a mid-value field
3. a large light shape on a mid-value field
4. a small dark shape on a large light shape on a mid-value field

These are illustrated in the following figure:

The painting Off Port Clyde is an example of principal value pattern 2. The white details next to the dark hull make a striking value statement:

The painting Cotswolds Farmhouse is an example of principal value pattern 3 - the light farmhouse shape contrasts well with the mid-value of the background:

Several other value patterns you may want to consider are light, dark, and mid-value shapes placed adjacent or overlapped throughout the painting, or all 3 values blended across the painting using gradation.

These "standard" value patterns have been presented to help you get started in planning the value patterns of your paintings.  But realize that you can adopt any value pattern that looks good to you - just be sure to do your value planning before you start painting, using small value sketches!  These principles apply to all paintings, regardless of subject.  Still lifes, portraits, and abstracts require the same value planning as landscapes to be successful.  Value is always king!  In the portrait below, Biker, the light value of the beard and the dark background do much more to make this a successful painting than do the colors that are used.

Venice Working Boat - Original Watercolor Painting

Venice allows no land vehicles, so everything and everyone must be moved by boat. In this scene of the Grand Canal, a working boat (truck) plies its trade among the vaporettos (waterbuses), pleasure boats, and Venetian gondolas.

If you'd like to purchase this 11" x 15" original watercolor painting for $200 including shipping within the United States, you can do it securely on my website www.jimoberst.com (click on the image). There are additional paintings for sale there, and my smaller paintings are available on my other website www.weeklywatercolor.com.  Add a unique original painting to your collection!

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Artist Tip #17 - Design Guidelines: Value Patterns

In previous artist tips, we covered the elements and principles of design.  Now, we'll cover some design guidelines: a number of suggestions to help us translate the generic principles of design into very practical approaches to improve our paintings.  The first guideline we'll discuss is perhaps the most important one: the creation and use of value patterns.

To be as successful as possible, a painting needs a wide range of values, from the very lightest to the very darkest.  A value pattern is the pattern of light, mid, and dark values in your painting.  The value pattern is king! It is the first thing we see when we look at a painting... before color, texture, etc.  A "good" value pattern will organize your painting and make it interesting.  A painting with a poor value pattern will be boring.

To be as successful as possible, a painting needs the entire range of values, from the very lightest to the very darkest.

So, how do we create a good value pattern for our painting?  The easiest way to plan our value pattern is to make a small, a quick value sketch (perhaps 3x5" or 4x6") of the major shapes in the planned painting, and fill in those shapes with 3 values of pencil shading or marker.  These 3 values represent the 3 value ranges that we discussed in Artist Tip #9.  This is the most important step you can take in designing your painting for success - most serious artists do this!  By doing several different value sketches for the same painting, you can compare several designs quickly and easily, and choose the value pattern with the most impact.  It can thus free you from slavishly copying your subject.  This is a lot better than painting a complete painting and then discovering that it has a weak value pattern and has to be repainted.

Here's an example of a very quick and simple pencil value sketch that I did to plan a painting:  I chose light values for the sky and water, medium for the city silhouette and sails, and dark for the boat hulls.

The corresponding painting was titled Evening on the Bosphorus, and followed pretty closely the value sketch, with a few small variations and enhancements:

But how does one get started on planning "good" value patterns?  One way to start is by trying some "standard" value patterns, which I'll explain here and in the following artist tip.

To begin, consider the following approach for landscape value patterns.  Almost all landscapes have three major shapes:  foreground, mid-ground, and background.  Simply assigning one of the three values to each of these shapes, and then trying several variations, can give the artist several possible value patterns to consider.

Here are a few sample paintings (both Hawaiian subjects) where these "landscape" patterns can be seen.  First, in Kauai North Beach, a dramatic effect was achieved with a light foreground, a dark mid-ground, and a mid-value background:

Our next example, Keanee Peninsula Maui, has a dark foreground, a light mid-ground, and a mid-value background:

In our next artist tip, we'll consider several more general value patterns that can be applied to all sorts of subjects.  Stay tuned!

Joseph Zbukvic Workshop

I just completed a 5-day watercolor workshop in Fallbrook, California, taught by Joseph Zbukvic, a modern master of watercolor.  Joseph completed over 10 demonstration paintings, all the while drumming into us students the basics of how he sees things, and how he paints.  He was completely free and generous with his insights and information, and spent a lot of time with students individually, helping us each to master the areas where we just "didn't get it".  What a great teacher!  I recommend his workshop to all watercolorists, particularly those who are intrigued by the landscape, and want to paint directly, without endless thin washes, to capture a scene quickly with the sparkle and immediacy of watercolor.  Here's our class; Joseph is in the middle with the "Z+U" shirt:

I've posted Joseph's demos and my own workshop paintings on my Facebook art page.  Enjoy!

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Off Port Clyde - Original Watercolor Painting

This sailboat was moored in Port Clyde harbor, St. George, Maine. You can see some of the islands in the background, and plenty of lobster trap markers bobbing in the harbor.

If you'd like to purchase this 11" x 15" original watercolor painting for $200 including shipping within the United States, you can do it securely on my website www.jimoberst.com (click on the image). There are additional paintings for sale there, and my smaller paintings are available on my other website www.weeklywatercolor.com.  Add a unique original painting to your collection!

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Artist Tip #16 - Painting Lines

Usually when we paint, we concentrate first on the largest shapes, and don't get to the details until the end of the painting process.  In workshops that I teach, I see many students struggling to finish a painting well, because of the lines needed.  For a sailboat, for example, the rigging must be painted with a light touch to be convincing.  But I often see thick, wavy lines painted on an otherwise excellent artwork that ruin the overall result.

So, what's so hard about painting lines?  The answer is making them look "painterly" - artistic, loose-looking, and not awkward.  Here are some approaches I've learned to paint good-looking lines.

Lines are easiest to paint with a proper brush, and there are three that I use in various circumstances - a rigger (thin, long hairs ending in a point), a script (thin, long hairs trimmed flat at the end), and a "bulb rigger" or "needle-point" brush (like a rigger, but with a bulge of extra hair near the ferrule to hold more paint).  A normal round brush with a very sharp point can also be used.

I find a rigger or needle-point brush best when painting thin lines.  My advice is to do all lines, both straight and curved, freehand.  This gives the best line quality.  (If you must use a ruler, hold it at 45 degrees to your paper or canvas, and run the brush ferrule along the edge of the ruler.)  Load your brush with paint and try a few practice lines on scrap first.  Use a light touch and go quickly - lines look most painterly when they're slightly broken, so don't press too hard.  And the most important thing is: do not look at the point of your brush, look at its destination.  This is not easy to do at first, but it's important.  If you look at the brush point as you're painting your line, I guarantee your line will wiggle in an ugly way.  It's not a big problem if your line doesn't go exactly where you wanted it to.  Slightly missing your exact goal will make your painting look looser and more painterly.  It's usually better to leave a poor alone than to try to correct it.

Another suggestion I have is to reposition your paper or canvas to take advantage of the natural swing of your arm.  If you're right-handed, it's easiest to paint a smooth line diagonally from your lower left to upper right as shown in the photo above, so move your painting so that the line goes in that general direction.  I find it difficult to paint smooth vertical thin lines without turning my paper at an angle.  Horizontal lines are easier to do without moving your painting.

I use different methods to paint thick lines.  These look best when broken or "skipped", especially for objects like wooden masts.  One approach is to use a rigger or script brush, load it with paint, and lay it on its side along the line to be painted.  It can then either be dragged along the line, or "patted" along the line, to make the line interesting.  I've also used the edge of a credit card or razor blade dipped in paint and moved slightly sideways along the line to give an interesting texture.

Finishing a painting should be the most enjoyable part of the painting process, and you don't want to spoil an otherwise good work with ponderous, wiggly lines when thin, painterly lines are called for.  So practice painting lines before you add them to your almost-finished painting!

Go Fly a Kite - Original Watercolor Painting

This is one of my very few abstract paintings.

If you'd like to purchase this 11" x 15" original watercolor painting for $200 including shipping within the United States, you can do it securely on my website www.jimoberst.com (click on the image). There are additional paintings for sale there, and my smaller paintings are available on my other website www.weeklywatercolor.com.  Add a unique original painting to your collection!

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Artist Tip #15 - Flattening a Finished Watercolor Painting Revisited

This is a tip specifically for watercolor artists, though there may be applications in other mediums - I just don't know.  In Artist Tip #2 we discussed several methods of flattening a completed watercolor painting - getting the ripples out that occur due to uneven wetting and drying of the paper during the painting process.  The method that worked best for me was misting the back of the painting and pressing it flat under a board and weights for a few days.  I've now abandoned this method, and moved on to a higher-tech method which allows me to flatten a painting perfectly in just a few minutes.

I recently read an article in the April 2013 issue of Watercolor Artist Magazine about artist Don Weller's western-themed paintings.  This article mentioned that Don flattened his finished paintings in a dry-mount press.  This sounded good to me, so I contacted Don, and he described his process to me on the phone.  After our discussion, it sounded even better.

I found that a number of sellers on ebay offer dry-mount presses that they procured as surplus government equipment.  After studying the various types available, I settled on a Seal Jumbo 150 press because there were a number of these offered, the price was reasonable for me (in the $150 range including shipping), it was a manageable size, and it was large enough to flatten an eighth- or quarter-sheet painting in one go.  Larger paintings can be flattened in sections.  Here's what this press looks like:

The flattening process is pretty simple.  Turn the press on, set to its lowest temperature - 180 degrees F.  Let it warm up for 5 or 10 minutes.  Then insert the painting, face down, into the press, on one of the fiber boards that came with the press.  Put a sheet of brown paper over the back of the painting (it's the top surface of the press that heats up).  Now, close the press, wait for about 30 seconds, and then open the press and remove the painting.  Voila! - a perfectly flat painting.  If the painting is larger, I just flatten it in sections, and no marks are discernible between the flattened areas when I'm done.

So - if you're a watercolor painter like me who paints lots of paintings, you may want to consider this quick and easy way to produce a perfectly flat painting ready for framing.

Thanks do Don Weller for introducing me to this method.

If you've missed some of my artist tips, you can retrieve all of them by finding the search box in the right-hand column of this blog, and searching for artist tips.

Arkansas Delta Farm - Original Watercolor Painting

This group of farm buildings is located in Grady, Arkansas, on the flat delta land near route 65.

If you'd like to purchase this 11" x 15" original watercolor painting for $200 including shipping within the United States, you can do it securely on my website www.jimoberst.com (click on the image). There are additional paintings for sale there, and my smaller paintings are available on my other website www.weeklywatercolor.com.  Add a unique original painting to your collection!

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Artist Tip #14 - Principles of Design (Part 4)

This is the fourth and last artist tip on the seven Principles of Design:

• Contrast
• Gradation
• Repetition with Variation
• Harmony
• Balance
• Dominance
• Unity

We've covered the first five, and in this post will cover the final two principles: Dominance and Unity.

Dominance suggests that when there are several related units of an element (see Artist Tips #9 and #10 to review the design elements), one of those units should be dominant.  Dominance can be applied to all elements.  For example:

• One shape should be largest
• One color should be brighter
• One spot should have the greatest contrast
• One of the directions - horizontal, vertical, or oblique - should be dominant

Dominance provides some order to the conflict and variation we introduce to make our paintings exciting.  It organizes our painting, and makes it more pleasing.  Let's take a look at Lake House:

In this painting, we can see dominance in one largest cloud, cool colors taking the largest area, one largest house, one largest clump of trees, etc.

Another painting we can examine for Dominance is Blue Water Racing:

Here, we can see a strong oblique dominance due to the position of the sails.  There is also one boat that is very clearly larger.  And the painting is mostly cool, with the red jackets on the sailors providing a temperature counterpoint.

Unity is the final design principle we shall consider.  This simply means that a painting should be a complete unit, not a set of separate parts.  Our major "tool" for accomplishing unity is called "relating":

• Any important shape should be echoed elsewhere in the painting
• Each color should be echoed elsewhere in the painting.
• A dominant texture in one part should be repeated in another part

But where should we echo these elements?  Diagonally is most pleasing.  Horizontally is good.  Vertically is least desirable.

If our painting has unity, it could be torn into 3 or 4 pieces, these pieces mixed with pieces of other paintings, and we could quickly pick out the pieces of our painting because they "go together".  A painting without unity is seldom pleasing to look at.

Let's discuss the unity we can find in Evening on the Bosphorus:

We can find the sky colors reflected in the water.  The large boat is reflected by the small one.  The sail color is also reflected in the smaller sail.

Bass Harbor Light has a number of examples of reflection:

Notice how the small tree on the left reflects the larger grove of trees on the right.  The white of the lighthouse is reflected in the light colored rocks. The red of the dormer roof is reflected in the red of the light.  And the yellow in the trees is reflected in the yellow near the rocks and the yellow weeds in front of the lighthouse.

So, in summary, when we introduce conflict, gradation, and repetition with variation, we may our painting interesting.  When we introduce harmony, balance, dominance, and unity, we provide order in our painting.  Without both interest and order, our painting will not be very pleasing to most viewers.

There's a lot more to learn about painting design, and we'll pick up the story in awhile.  But next time, we'll take a break from design, and jump into a different topic.  I hope you've found the tips on design elements and principles interesting and useful.

Strasbourg - Original Watercolor Painting

This is the Ill river in Strasbourg, France, near where it joins the Rhine on the France/Germany border.

If you'd like to purchase this 11" x 15" original watercolor painting for $200 including shipping within the United States, you can do it securely on my website www.jimoberst.com (click on the image). There are additional paintings for sale there, and my smaller paintings are available on my other website www.weeklywatercolor.com.  Add a unique original painting to your collection!

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Artist Tip #13 - Principles of Design (Part 3)

We've been discussing the seven Principles of Design:

• Contrast
• Gradation
• Repetition with Variation
• Harmony
• Balance
• Dominance
• Unity

We saw how contrast, gradation, and repetition with variation help us to make our paintings more interesting and less boring.  We'll now begin discussing the final four principles that balance these first three, and help us pull our painting together into a unified whole.

Harmony refers to elements that are similar, and mainly applies to color.  For example, green is harmonious with yellow or blue, since it is near them on the color wheel.  Harmony need not be applied to the entire painting, and can provide peace and rest even when used only in parts of our paintings, but let's look at some extreme cases - paintings with a strong harmonious overall color-temperature scheme.

In Country Christmas, the overall purple, blue, and green colors - near one another on the color wheel - give the entire painting a cool feel.  Notice that there are touches of warm, mainly in the wooden fence and the distant trees, to provide some color contrast:

In The Old Guard, on the other hand,  reds, yellows, and browns dominate, giving the overall painting a warm feel:

The principle of Balance that we will discuss next applies mostly to shapes, though it can also apply to other elements - particularly value.  An unbalanced painting, with most of its shapes on one side, is disturbing to view.  If we think of balance in terms of weight, large shapes "feel" heavier than small shapes, and dark shapes "feel" heavier than light shapes.  In addition, balance can be either formal, with similar shapes in similar positions on both sides of the painting, or informal, with larger shapes on one side close to the center, and small shapes on the other side, nearer the painting edge.  Think of informal balance on a seesaw or teeter-totter, with a large child near the fulcrum balancing a smaller child near the end, and you'll have the idea.  We generally find informal balance more pleasing than formal balance.  Balance applies to paintings horizontally, not vertically - a painting that is "heavier" on the bottom "feels" fine.  But if it's heavier on the top, it can seem odd.

The painting Making Headway is a very good example of informal balance:

The small sailboat on the left further from the center balances the larger sailboat on the right which is closer to the center, making the painting feel well-balanced.  Another example is Hobie, where the large sailboat near the center is balanced by the two smaller sailboats further away:

The balance does not need to be this carefully contrived to make the painting feel right.  Our final example is Concentration:

In this painting, most of the weight of the painting, in terms of shapes and value, is on the left.  But just having the fishing rod extending to the right, out of the painting, is enough to give the painting a balanced feel.  The "weights" need not be accurately computed, there just must be something to balance a large weight on one side of the painting.

Our next artist tip will cover dominance and unity, finishing up our discussion of the principles of design.  Stay tuned!  And if you've found the discussions of the elements and principles of design worthwhile, realize that in this blog I can only scratch the surface.  If you want "the whole story", attend my upcoming 1-day seminar titled Design for Painters on April 30 in Hot Springs Village, Arkansas.  For a description of this seminar, go to my Workshops web page, and for more information about registering, go to my Events web page.

If you've missed some of my artist tips, you can retrieve all of them by finding the search box in the right-hand column of this blog, and searching for artist tips.

Big Cat - Original Watercolor Painting

This big catamaran looks like it means business. It's moored with other sailboats in a marina in Coconut Grove, Miami, Florida.

If you'd like to purchase this 11" x 15" original watercolor painting for $200 including shipping within the United States, you can do it securely on my website www.jimoberst.com (click on the image). There are additional paintings for sale there, and my smaller paintings are available on my other website www.weeklywatercolor.com.  Add a unique original painting to your collection! Join my fine art e-newsletter mailing list Here.

Artist Tip #12 - Principles of Design (Part 2)

In Artist Tip #11, we listed the seven Principles of Design:

• Contrast
• Gradation
• Repetition with Variation
• Harmony
• Balance
• Dominance
• Unity

and discussed the first two.  In this tip, we'll move on to the third design principle...

Repetition with Variation tells us to introduce variation into any repeating object in our painting.  Examples include trees in a forest, fence posts, clouds, rocks, etc.  Our natural, human tendency is to paint repeated objects uniformly, but unfortunately, repetition without variation is dull and boring.  So unless we're designing wallpaper, we need to overcome our natural tendency and include variation, even when the objects before us appear very uniform.

It's best to vary as many elements as we can - size, direction, color, spacing, edge texture, etc.  We should try to vary lines as well as shapes.  For this reason, it is seldom a good idea to use a ruler for lines on our paintings.  To represent a group of items, often three are sufficient.  We can think mama, papa, baby to help us vary the sizes of the shapes we paint.

 In the painting Lazy Afternoon, we can see how variation can be applied to lines:

The lines that represent the stems of grass and grain vary in size, direction, width, and type (straight or curved).  This creates interest in a painting that would be rather boring if all of the grass and grain stems were of similar size, width, and direction.

Making Headway illustrates a number of shapes repeated with purposeful variation:

Note first the three sailboats, each of a different size, and with different spacing between them.  The sailboats are also a good example of applying the mama, papa, baby principle.  Varying the repeated spaces between shapes is just as important as varying the shapes themselves.  The clouds, also , have variation in size and shape.  Finally, look at the foam breaking on the beach.  The variation and randomization of its shape has been  exaggerated compared to actual foam on a beach to make the painting more interesting to look at.

A third example of repetition with variation can be seen in River Town:

Rural landscapes often include a line of fence posts, and in reality they may be quite uniform.  But to make our paintings more entertaining, it's important to vary the posts - their height, thickness, direction, and the space between them.  If we don't think about doing this purposely, our natural tendency will lead us to make the posts uniform, and our paintings a bit boring.

You will find it instructive to take a second look at these painting examples and try to identify where the first two design principles - contrast and gradation - have been applied.

We've now discussed the first three principles of design, which help us to make our paintings more interesting and less boring.  In our next tip, we'll start to discuss the remaining principles that balance these first three, and help us pull our painting together into a unified whole.

Twilight Sail - Original Watercolor Painting

The sailboats' grace is in harmony with the peaceful sunset.

If you'd like to purchase this 11" x 15" original watercolor painting for $200 including shipping within the United States, you can do it securely on my website www.jimoberst.com (click on the image). There are additional paintings for sale there, and my smaller paintings are available on my other website www.weeklywatercolor.com.  Add a unique original painting to your collection! Join my fine art e-newsletter mailing list Here.