I Made a Mistake and Then I Fixed It.

Now that the Steve Situation is settled. . .

Steve is not in this picture. But feel free to take a seat, and read the rest of this blog post.

. . . I have freed up the part of my brain that has been obsessed with him for the past many weeks and can now think deep, meaningful thoughts.

But first, let’s paint:

This is a scene from Claude Monet’s garden in Giverny (France). It’s called The Grande Allee, and it’s a long pathway of flowers over which six arches arch, and at the end there’s two huge old Yew trees that frame the front door to Monet’s pink house. Here’s a photo of it that I got off the internets (it shows the allee on a sunny Summer morning, judging by the shadows):

Photo credit: Cindy Carlsson

And here are my own reference photos that I took on my most recent 3-day Spring visit to Giverny:

That last photo is more useful when I crop it way small:

I am mashing up my own reference photos with photos of this view that I’ve studied in books about Giverny, reason being that I want to paint a Summer view and all my own ref pix were taken in Spring (no roses). So, here’s another look at the false start I made on getting this Summer view painted:

What was I thinking?

Those flowers on the right side are awful, but since it took me much agony to work out the perspective of those damn arches (I draw very lightly in pencil, so you can’t see how many times I’ve erased), it filled me with dread to have to draw them all over again so what did I do?

I rescued it:

I painted a new right side on a separate piece of paper, I cut it out, and I placed it over the offending bits. I did not yet glue it into place because I wasn’t sure the rest of the pic would work and I might have to use that rescue bit again, if the rest of the painting went badly. So for the time being, it’s held in place with scotch tape:

Confession: As a rule, I don’t care for yellow flowers. At least, not flowers on stalks. Dandelions are adorable, and I like buttercups, but yellow tulips, and delphiniums, and the verbascum in Monet’s late Summer garden do not appeal to me. (And I really don’t like daffodils.) But I’m really happy with the way I got the yellow to shimmer here. Remember: bleeds will make or break your picture.

The roses on the arch…I don’t know:

Ugh. Red roses. The important thing is to blend in the rescue by painting into it:

So far:

If you know me, you know that this is the bit that I LOVE doing, the teeny little detail of Monet’s front steps and open door:

Can you see the very light blue blob to the right of this doorway? And can you see the way it bleeds into the green? I am crazy in love with this effect — you can’t paint delicate tracery like that; you only get it if you let your watercolors bleed — let the paint and the water do the work!

I’m going to be bold with my use of black, which I mix heavily in with green for the Yew trees:

Instead of blue sky in the background, I’m using yellow foliage to bring in the sun, and to balance that glowing bit of yellow on the right side:

At this point, I’m 90% sure that I can’t ruin it, so I’ve glued the rescue bit into place.

I’m going for more drama, with a very very blackish-green again:

This is very boring to paint, because it’s just filling in the dark background. The only challenge is to use to a very teeny 00-size brush when you get to the details, to paint around those itty bitty bits of roses.

I ruled out the edges because, Why paint any more than you have to?

I think I might use this for the cover for my Monet Garden book:

DONE.

Tea bag for scale but now that you mention it, I could go for a nice cup.

And now I hope to never paint another Monet garden scene again. I started doing watercolor sketches of this garden in 2012, when I thought I might include it in my last book, the one about 9 of the best gardens in the world (Gardens of Awe and Folly):

The allee in Spring, looking away from the house.

But it’s too big a garden, and I knew I’d have to make it its own book:

The allee in Spring, looking away from the house. I hoped to avoid having to paint the house but alas, in Monet’s garden, sooner or later, you have to.

This (below) isn’t mine — it’s by the renowned French landscape painter, Fabrice Moireau:

Just shows you how another artist handled all those yellow flowers. I didn’t do the double arches because it was too hard. But if I change my mind I can still go back and add them in. I know all the tricks when it comes to rescuing a watercolor because I’ve made all the mistakes.

Before we part for another week, I want to take moment to let you know that the world lost an outstanding cat last week. Our Dear Reader Janet had to say good-bye to her girl, Smokey:

Smokey was a heart’s true companion, a peacekeeper in health and a courageous soul in sickness. Shine on, you sweet sunbeam.

Have a great weekend, everyone. May all your rescues be warm and furry, and all your thoughts deep and meaningful. (Since I’ve wrapped up the Steve Situation, I’ve been wondering about the possibilities of personal evolution. How much have you changed since you were 18? I have a story for you next week.)

XXOO