February Challenge

My art group has a monthly challenge that involves painting from pictures,  There were three photographs for February.  This project's "historical" name is "Subject to Interpretation," and this is the second year we've done it in the Winter when we can't work outside--en plein air.

I approached this a little differently than I usually do--and interpreted the three paintings together as one abstract.  To do that, I made a black and white printout of each photograph, and then traced over each on the same sheet of tracing paper so that I had a line drawing with some interesting shapes, but nothing really recognizable. 

I then transferred the transfer paper drawing to a full sheet of watercolor, and added some more lines because some of the areas were not "interesting."  That's when the fun began.  I painted various shapes, leaving a large white center, as I learned in a John Salminen workshop.  I used a limited number of colors and tried to link some of the shapes.  It's all about shapes!!!!  

It's not finished, but February 2011 is coming to an end, and it needs to be posted on the group blog, http://www.behindthescenes-ppasp.blogspot.com/. 

PS:  Hope you enjoy the fish shapes!!!!