Joshua Elek

Watercolor Paintings

Category: Studies

  • Cloudy Sky: #4

    Cloudy Sky: #4

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    I decided to try that painting again. I was going to try some exercises with back runs, and water, but before I knew it I was painting. So… here it is. There are some things that I really like here, and some things I definitely want to do differently. But, I think I’m done with…

  • Cloudy Sky: #3

    Cloudy Sky: #3

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    I think I might need to rename this painting. Now at the third iteration, I think it’s more about the rocks and vegetation than it is about the sky. At any rate, I have volunteered to work part-time during the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s a very strange time in the world right now, and I don’t…

  • Cloudy Sky: #2

    Cloudy Sky: #2

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    Today I tried painting that barn that’s in my memory again. There are some things that worked better here than in the first one, and some that didn’t work out. I feel better prepared now for number 3. Here is the sketch I made before painting this one. I really tried to increase the visual…

  • Cloudy Sky: #1

    Cloudy Sky: #1

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    On my drive last week to Lutz Lock, where I failed at painting the old lock from the Erie Canal, I saw a barn on the side of the road that I remember thinking looked like a nice one to paint. I didn’t stop though, and only have the scene and in my memory. Today,…

  • Barn in Walhonding: Studies

    Barn in Walhonding: Studies

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    I think I’ve learned my lesson by now… before I paint, I need to study my subject. And, what’s the point of doing all these studies if I don’t take the time to reflect on them to better evaluate what I’ve learned by doing them? That’s the purpose of this post – I want to…

  • Tree Study

    Tree Study

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    I wanted to paint something from my imagination the other day, and this is what I came up with. It’s an attempt to mimic a style that I saw in a painting by Joseph Zbukvic, and now that I look at it again, I feel like it’s close enough to his composition to say that…

  • It’s all part of the journey

    It’s all part of the journey

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    I have to remind myself over and over… you are only a year and a half into this. I’m a sophomore in high school… I should expect to paint like I’m sixteen. I have been running into a slew Of failed painting again. I’m not sure why exactly. For some reason I’m no where near…

  • I Will

    I Will

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    My last post was a pretty big downer. I’m glad I wrote it because it’s honest. But it also highlighted how inadequate I have been feeling lately. That post was titled “I can’t.” Today, I decided to paint and post again, and I wanted to title this one, “I can.” But that’s not honest. I…

  • Glitter War Studies: Pegacorn

    Glitter War Studies: Pegacorn

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    My brother asked me to paint a picture for his daughter, with two princess castles caught in a glitter war with flying unicorns and rainbows. I did a few studies on it last week, and over the weekend I painted the Pegacorn as a draft. I want to experiment with how to paint that because…

  • Glitter War: Studies

    Glitter War: Studies

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    My Brother asked me to paint a picture for his daughter like the illustrations I did recently. I’m pretty intimidated to paint something for him to be honest, because he is such a talented and accomplished artist. (Did I mention he’s the lead VFX artist for Epic’s Fortnite?) Anyway, I took him up on it…

  • Dairy Farm: #1.1-3.4

    Dairy Farm: #1.1-3.4

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    Ok, I’m interested in painting the Dairy Farm that I found yesterday. The problem is, I hate the paintings I did yesterday, and the photo I took for future reference is pretty awful – because the fence cuts right through the subject. I try to take photos quickly when I start because I want to…

  • Saturation Notation, Tree Technique, Atmosphere, and Perspective

    Saturation Notation, Tree Technique, Atmosphere, and Perspective

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    There are two big things I’m consistently disappointed in when I look at my landscapes: trees and atmosphere. Today, I set out to practice these. I grabbed some scrap paper (A.K.A. the back of a failed painting). I painted a very simple horizon and sky. The goal here was two-fold: practice painting atmosphere, and give…

  • Nimisilla Sunset Recipe

    Nimisilla Sunset Recipe

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    I think a good idea is to think of a painting in terms of a recipe. You need to add the right ingredients at the right time with the right motions in order to get the right end result. With that in mind, I took the lessons I learned from my practice sessions, and tried…

  • Nimisilla Sunset Practice

    Nimisilla Sunset Practice

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    I played with the Nimisilla painting a lot today. I took a bunch of failed paintings, and quartered them on the back with masking tape. In each quadrant I tried a study of the painting to “solve the problems” as Rick Surowicz puts it. But you can’t solve problems until you identify them. Here are…

  • Nimisilla Sunset: #2

    Nimisilla Sunset: #2

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    This is a pre-test for a painting I want to do of a scene in my memory from last week when I went fishing with my friend Babs. Babs and I have been good friends for over 20 years now. That’s a weird thing for me to say because in my mind, I’m not much…

  • WAL Hand Plane: #1

    WAL Hand Plane: #1

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    I wanted some more practice with glazing and realistic painting. This hand plane seemed like a good subject because it’s a simple shape and allows an opportunity to practice getting a bit of the luminescence that comes with glazing, but it’s still an interesting subject. (And, I love hand planes.) I started by putting three…

  • Pigment Tests: #1

    Pigment Tests: #1

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    Ron Hazell’s book recommended a pretty simple pigment test, which I have created here. I used the majority of the pigments I own, but did not use Lapis Lazuli Genuine, Titanium White, or Neutral Tint. The idea is to draw one big black vertical line with a marker, then paint horizontal lines of each pigment…

  • Study – Water: #4

    Study – Water: #4

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    Tonight I tried to get a bit closer to the water to try to define the shapes of the ripples a little more. I see a lot here that I like. Primarily the dip in the third wave up on the left. Compositionally, that wave should be more to the right and I should have…

  • Study – Water: #3

    Study – Water: #3

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    Still doing too much on the water. There is something about the composition that I like on this one. I really wanted to try to paint perspective in the clouds, but the shadows aren’t flat enough at the horizon. I think on the next go round, I’ll simplify the shapes and paint them almost like…

  • Study – Water: #2

    Study – Water: #2

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    This is only half of the exercise for this painting. I started adding objects into the water just to test how to paint the reflections. (I should also note, this is painted on the reverse of Study-Water: 1. I like to use both sides of the paper when I’m experimenting/learning in order to save paper.)…