Joseph Zbukvic, day 5

Today we painted Girona. Joseph chose a bit up the river with the Eiffel red bridge and a church in the background. He worked for a long time with the many sunlit roofs. Here it is important not to make it monotonous, to vary all the time, both colors, strength and shapes. It’s a very difficult thing to paint this geyser of a house roof, it easily becomes just dots and spots. On the other side of the river, the buildings stretched all the way past us. Joseph chose to finish with a house wall. The dark wall looked very good at first, but apparently Joseph was not satisfied and continued to work on it. It usually never turns out well and the same was true for the world’s best watercolor painter, the wall just got worse and worse. It is amazing to see how he meticulously completes one piece at a time. It’s easy to paint a little there, a little there, but Joseph often pointed out the importance of finishing painting each part before moving on to the next. In this image you could clearly see how the image was divided into different textures, the sky but one type, the roofs with their light and dark bits, the dark house wall. Last of all, he painted the soft water, which thus acquired another type of texture. Skilled.

^{A bit up the river in Girona and Joseph’s fantastic interpretation on the right}

I was satisfied with this part of my watercolor

We tried to paint a similar motif but it turned out dirty. Joseph commented that the buildings in the background were too dark and I tried to lighten them but it was difficult in retrospect.

In the afternoon, Joseph chose a square, with parasols, cars and people. Here he succeeded very well, lighting the people (which he made up because there were none there).