Johannesburg Botanical Garden

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I while back my wife and I went for a date and spent the time in Johannesburg Botanical Garden at Emmarentia Dam.  The sun shining through the trees was quite spectacular and I took the picture below as a reference for a future painting.

Johannesburg Botanical Garden

Johannesburg Botanical Garden

I came across this photo a couple of days ago and decided to start to work on it.  As a starting point I did the following watercolour sketch.  I was trying to work with general shapes and colour.  The outcome was OK, but not what I expected, so I decided to move on to some acrylics.

Watercolour studie

Watercolour study

I have not worked in acrylics for quite a while, but I was really satisfied with the outcome.  I just realized again that the depth of colour one can achieve with acrylics is some much better that what can be achieved with watercolour.  Watercolours has its placed and I am thing to primarily use the watercolours as a medium for sketching and to perform a pre-study for a painting.

Emmarentia dam forest in acrylics

Emmarentia dam forest in acrylics

2 thoughts on “Johannesburg Botanical Garden”

  2. Francois Post author

    Thanks. The real painting looks much better. I paid a lot of attention to getting the values right. I wish you could see the real one. I really struggle to get the painting properly represented on a photo.

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