Today’s watercolor experiment:

Nestled in the film strip that I took during one of my walks near the East River in New York City, I found the photograph that I used for today’s watercolor experiment. Its composition is very simple, a portrait orientation of a big, black door (presumably the opening to an elevator shaft since the two halves of the door meet horizontally) surrounded by two brick columns.

The purpose of today’s exercise was to capture the dark shading at the top and sides of the doorway, approximate the distressed nature of the doors and of course capture the graffiti and the sense of humor of the artist.

I used white and red ink with a couple of different dip pen nibs to ink the graffiti; the white ink was too thick however for a faithful rendering of the printed ‘beware of dog’ sign. I used a small brush to paint the white-ink silhouettes of the dogs. To further mar the appearance of the door, I used a sponge to dab discolorations on it.

Beware of Dog
6″x4″ 140# Mixed Media Paper

My little watercolor vignette would have more impact if the ‘beware of dog’ sign more resembled a pre-printed sign. As it is now, it just looks like part of the graffiti. The joke was lost.

However, the joke is intact in the reference photograph below:

Beware of Dog Reference Photo