Marvin Szmit White Church by Ocean

This is my second submission for July 2014 Virtual Paintout challenge, it's watercolor on Arches paper.

When I saw this little white church by the ocean (ref), I was a bit torn. I liked the white and blue contrast that is very Greek, however, it's a bit clichė and I saw many paintings on VP with similar subjects already. However I still decided to go ahead because I thought the wall of the white church is perfect for water color, and I wanted to see how intense and saturated of a blue I can get the sky to be with water color. I also used masking ink during the painting process to reserve the white spots in the middle of darker colors, such as the crosses on the door. There was a blemish on the water color paper unfortunately and that had shown through on my sky. Next time I will experiment with other types of water color paper.

Morning View over Sengekontaket Pond

Every summer we go up to Martha's Vineyard. This is a morning view across the Sengekontacket Pond around 6:30, 7 in the morning when we went for our morning walk. I painted this view a couple of years ago with oil. This year since I'm traveling with water color, I decided to give the view another try with water color.

Acropolis Museum Two Horse Riders

This is for Virtual Painout July 2014 Greece challenge. It's water color on 7x10in Arche paper.

Greece is a very interesting place to travel virtually. I was looking around in Athens, and realized that the Acropolis Museum also has Google street view. I visited the museum virtually and decided to try to paint this wall sculpture with two horse riders. (Ref) 

This summer with all the travels I'm doing, I decided I would bring water color with me, instead of oil. Water color is easier to travel with. I bought some new brushes and paper from Blicks when I was in Boston. This wall sculpture I thought would be well suited for water color, and I also deepened the shadows to make the horses and horsemen pop out even more.