Water Painting Classes- Week 5 & 6- Puddle Painting...

This is my second week and I'm struggling with this style of painting.  In Puddle Painting, the painting is divided up into segments.  You start off by lightly drawing in the painting.  Then you plan you painting in segments.  Something that I will admit that I'm not very good at-- planning my painting.  Taking each segment of the painting you "puddle" water in that segment then drop color in.  It is very different in this style in that you mix the colors right in the painting rather than using a mixing tray.  I find this a bit scary in that I'm not always definite on what color I want to use in a certain segment of a painting.  Thus, I'm coming face to face with my problem of planning my paintings.  OUCH! 

I saw improvement in my second week of learning the puddle painting style of water color.  Last week's class was a disaster!  I ended up throwing last weeks attempt it was SO bad. I will admit that such things don't happen often but it did last week.  I had tried to paint a couple of young children leaning on each other.  It looked like a couple of lobster-colored aliens that were getting ready for Halloween. 

(Photo- The Highway Home- my second attempt at puddle painting.)

This week Colleen took us through a presentation of visually making our paintings have a sense of spacial feelings.  In other words, making our two dimensional paintings look 3-D.  We went over several different ways that you could accomplish this-- value, sizing, level of detail, and height on the paper.  Colleen showed up several details and also talked about the plains of a painting.  Plains is referring to those items that are closer are on a plain and those item that are farther will be on another plain.  We need to use these concepts when we are planning our paintings.  Ooopps!  There's my problem-- planning a painting! 

I chose to paint from a photo that I took from my car as I was driving home from my Omaha trip this last week.  Photo of the painting is above and believe me-- it's better than last week's attempt.  The Highway Home -- I think it looks like a highway disappearing in the distance.  What do you think?  BUT now I do need to see about getting some practice in!  See if I can improve my learning curve just a bit.