Alpine Meadow

The countryside around Füssen, near the southern edge of Germany, has much to recommend it. There are green rolling hills dotted with many picturesque lakes (mainly in Germany), there is the ever present backdrop of the mountains (mainly across the border in Austria), and of course there are the fairy tale castles of Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau nearby.

This painting ignores the castles and lakes completely, concentrating instead on the hills and the mountains, with a ubiquitous wooden barn thrown in to add some focus. The painting technique was something of an experiment, combining my recent discovery of masking fluid with wet-on-wet watercolour painting that I have tried once or twice before. I think I’m happy with the result – at least the masking fluid controlled the spread of the paint in the way I expected it to. However, I am sure that the paint colours shouldn’t be as blotchy and watermarked as they are, so clearly there is still a lot of room for improvement in my wet-on-wet technique.