Cool autumn day

Some days have few clouds and crisp blue skies. October 6th was one of these. Trying to make a smooth gradient of ultramarine to cerulean on rough watercolor paper was a pleasant challenge. The saturated paper tends to undulate with gravity then causing areas of greater or lesser pigment.


Here is inspiration from John Constable, from his fourth lecture in a series, June 6th, 1836, at the Royal Institution of Great Britain on The History of Landscape Painting:

It was said by Sir Thomas Lawrence, that 'we can never hope to compete with nature in the beauty and delicacy of her separate forms or colours,--our only chance lies in selection and combination.' Nothing can be more true,--and it may be added, that selection and combination are learned from nature herself, who constantly presents us with compositions of her own, far more beautiful than the happiest arranged by human skill.

Well said, Mr Constable.