Landscapes, Desert — watercolor painting by Ray Patrick
Four watercolour studies ruled out on one sheet — a woman carrying a red board over rocks, two figures walking a wet shore at sunset, a green park scene, and a desert mesa above flowering ground.
Four rectangles in a grid, seen at an angle so the sheet recedes to the upper right. Three are figure studies with a high horizon; the fourth abandons figures entirely for landscape, which is what makes the page read as a working sheet.
The sunset study is plum and cadmium orange over violet sand; the mesa study sets a slate butte against chartreuse and vermilion ground. The two left-hand studies are cooler, teal and sap green.
Small and quick, each figure two or three loaded touches with no outline. The long dark reflections in the sunset study are single dragged strokes put in last over dry colour.
Watercolour on paper, four studies on one sheet. A studio photograph of a sheet of studies rather than a single picture.
Along the edge of each study, raypatrick, in pencil, letters widely spaced.