Ron Cosford Watercolours

Picture in the making (one method) - Stage 6

Pulling everything together. What I aim at I to paint as loosely as I can, but at the same time paying attention to a) the direction of sunlight and b) recession, by keeping more distant features lighter in tone and less precise in detail. Knowing when to stop is very important: better to accept what you’ve got than to try to change it too much, with the danger of ending up with an over-worked picture. You can always add a little later, if you need to, after you have gone away and come back to the picture with fresher eyes.

(With apologies for inconsistencies in the quality of my photography. Colours and tones are not perfect in this demonstration, but I hope that the general method remains clear enough.)