The Virtual Paintout - Croatia!

The Virtual Paintout for October 2012 was in Croatia!  Bill Guffey created The Virtual Paintout and assigns the monthly location for our paintings.  This was my third time to participate.  Artists must use Google Street View to look around the specified city or country to find their images to draw or paint.  The URL of the street view must be submitted to Bill along with our artwork.

I really loved the variety of gorgeous scenery in Croatia.  It looks like a beautiful place for a real life visit.  I had to report for jury duty on October 1 which always entails a lot of waiting.  I was happy to see that the computers in the juror's room could get Google Street View!  Since I had a lot of time to wait, I took the opportunity to "look" around Dubrovnik, where there are some beautiful, sheltered marinas.  I felt like trying another piece with water and found several possibilities for painting reference.  Master watercolorist Joseph Zbukvic grew up in Croatia in a farming area and mentioned in one of his DVDs that he still loves those scenes.  For my second piece I looked around rural areas outside of Zagreb for a farm or rustic buildings, hoping for the same inspiration.  It turns out that there are hundreds and hundreds of farms and ranches there.  When the end of the month nears I have to make a decision on what to paint!  

For these two pieces I wanted to try using gouache, opaque watercolor.  I really had fun using it for landscapes.  These are both about 5"x7".