Afternoon In Taos

This is a painting of the Couse House from my Taos workshop in May. By the way, there are still two spaces available for this years Taos Watercolor Workshop and if you are interested send me an email. Edgar Couse was one of the first artists to settle in Taos and his house is now a museum. This is a painting of the front entrance which leads into the house and studio and also into the yard with the flower gardens. The adobe colors are mixtures of cobalt violet and yellow ochre with mineral violet in the darker shadow areas. When I painted the sky with cerulean blue I blotted it with a tissue to get the atmospheric effect that I wanted. After painting the lilacs with cobalt violet and different greens I spattered some white watercolor for highlights. Values are important to the structure of this painting and I worked to get a nice range from the darkest dark to the lightest light and all the values in between. For example, the wooden door has some of the darkest and lightest values and that adds to its importance. I placed the iris in the front to briefly hold the viewers eye in the foreground. As I look at this painting I am already getting excited about painting in Taos this Spring.