Unbelievably beautiful watercolour painting by artist @squint_ur_eyes

Explore the unbelievably beautiful and masterful watercolour painting by traditional artist @squint_ur_eyes. He paints his observational watercolour landscapes from life and en plein air, i.e. outdoors in nature.

Examine how this watercolourist creates the illusion of space and conveys a sense of atmospheric conditions. He intrigues the beholder with visual ambivalence. And he narrates the cycle of life with equanimity. On the technical side, @squint_ur_eyes deploys both wet-on-wet and dry-on-wet techniques to achieve the depth of his watercolour paintings.

Here is a table of contents for easy navigation.

Table of contents

1. Untitled, by @squint_ur_eyes, painted with watercolours
   1. Masterful handling of watercolours creates a spatial illusion.
   2. A watercolour painting with an ambivalent protagonist
   3. Decoding the subject of the watercolour landscape
   4. A watercolour painting narrating the cycle of life in a visual metaphor
   5. A watercolour painting with a deliberate inconsistency in the spatial illusion
   6. An ingenious artistic decision guides our eyesight.
   7. A strong composition unifies this watercolour painting.
   8. Squint your eyes! And you will discern a masterpiece.
2. Untitled, by@squint_ur_eyes, painted with watercolours
   1. A wet-on-wet background gives the watercolour painting its depth.
   2. Painting the mid-ground of the watercolour landscape
   3. Switching from wet-on-wet to wet-on-dry for the foreground
   4. In sum, masterful handling of watercolour painting techniques

Now, let us enjoy the unbelievably beautiful watercolour painting by artist @squint_ur_eyes.

1) Untitled, by @squint_ur_eyes, painted with watercolours

This picture was the first watercolour painting I saw when I discovered the landscape depictions of artist @squint_ur_eyes. What an adorable work of art! At first glance, the colour scheme did remind me of the colour palette in some of the oil paintings by Spanish surrealist Salvador Dalì. That backdrop of a smooth blue sky, the subtle haziness of the atmospheric conditions and a clear, a bit grotesque or almost surreal structure in the foreground. Surreal in as much as we need time to decipher what we see. Our eyes seem trapped between fact and fantasy.

Masterful handling of watercolours creates a spatial illusion.

Sure, there is a bent tree as the main protagonist. While rooted in the painting’s bottom right corner, the tree reclines diagonally backwards and across the picture plane. Its barren crown dominates the upper left corner of the image. The artist @squint_ur_eyes is handling watercolours masterfully to let the branches of the treetop fade away in the mid-ground haze to convey the illusion of space. Even the green hedge to the bottom left of the picture does start with detailed leaves and lush hues before it begins receding a few feet into the distance in a faded, washed-out tone.

A watercolour painting with an ambivalent protagonist

It is that vast space in the mid-ground up to the horizon that makes the sharp outlines of the tree stand out. My eyes travel to and fro a few times, bewildered until they start unravelling the foreground. I am intrigued by the light grey ribbons winding up the tree trunk like a giant serpent. Even the bifurcated end at the tree roots one could read as the split tongue of a snake. The picture allows for multiple deciphering of ambiguous shapes. Similarly, we encountered the notion of visual ambivalence in the watercolour painting Suicidio [Suicide] by @merce_fotomirades.

Decoding the subject of the watercolour landscape

However, the vertical bands in the centre of the watercolour painting running straight up to the tree stem give it away as some overgrowth. Gradually, my eyes spot a ramus arising from the ribbon-like shape mistaken for a reptile. The lush foliage on the branch’s twigs contrasts strongly with the barren boughs and sprigs of the bent treetop. I feel that the big tree is dying, and the light grey plant is thriving. The dark birds perching among the parched twigs are harbingers of the old tree’s demise.

A watercolour painting narrating the cycle of life in a visual metaphor

Only now do I begin to comprehend the meaning of the accompanying description that @squint_ur_eyes has written under his Instagram post: “When one life starts disappearing, another starts existing. Life doesn’t go anywhere, it’s always there[, but its] form has… changed…”. Wow, how well this watercolour painting narrates it. What an adorable metaphor for the great cycle of life itself! Accordingly, the treetop is bending into a hazy background, fading out, exhaling its final breaths.

A watercolour painting with a deliberate inconsistency in the spatial illusion

The grey serpentine plant’s lush foliage on that one vertical bough branching off into three rami stands like the crown of a new tree. One could argue that its leaves should shine in a less saturated hue of green to concur with the washed-out end of the hedge at the bottom left, as both are about the same distance from the viewer. Either this or the reverse offers a logical, visual representation.

An ingenious artistic decision guides our eyesight.

That is to say, as an alternative, the end of the receding shrub could be more saturated and full of detailed leaves. However, what we see in this watercolour landscape is the ingenious solution of artist @squint_ur_eyes. His artistic decision to let the receding bush fade out within a few feet while depicting the foliage atop the coiling plant in all its lushness, saturation and detail highlights the contrast. Thus, our eyes get drawn to the new blossoming crown. Besides, the diagonal tree trunk acts as a bridge rushing our gaze towards the discovery.

A strong composition unifies this watercolour painting.

Finally, this painting has such a powerful composition. Conspicuous is the tree trunk extending diagonally across the picture plane and into the fading distance. Its stem is reclining backwards and to the top left. In contrast, the main bough of the treetop is pointing towards the lower left corner of the frame. In other words, the branch is bending in a diagonal direction that counters the tree trunk’s diagonal thrust at a vertex point. And that is the beginning of a triangular outline inscribed into the two-dimensional picture plane.

Squint your eyes! And you will discern a masterpiece.

The triangle’s base consists of the dying tree’s horizontal roots, prolonged by the ducking squirrel with its extended tail. This three-sided figure gets echoed by three green corner points: First, the blossoming, twining plant’s lush foliage on top. Centrally placed, its crown marks the apex of an isosceles triangle. Second, we see the dense, detailed shrub to the bottom left. And third, there is the sparse but fresh green grass towards the bottom right of the depiction. Squint your eyes, and you will discern it. In conclusion, I would call this watercolour painting a masterpiece.

2) Untitled, by @squint_ur_eyes, painted with watercolours

Here is another incredible, observational watercolour landscape by artist @squint_ur_eyes. It is a great example showing how to combine wet-on-wet and dry-on-wet techniques in watercolour painting. First, the watercolourist did lay down the fuzzy background consisting of a wall of trees against a blue sky in a wet-on-wet manner. Wet-on-wet means the watercolour pigments get painted onto a damp sheet already moisturised by a broad brush full of clear water. Or maybe the entire sheet of paper got submerged in a water basin, whichever is more practicable.

A wet-on-wet background gives the watercolour painting its depth.

Since the watercolour painting got created en plein air, French for “outdoors”, the artist most likely used a moist brush to wet the paper. Probably, he spared the moon when he laid down the blue sky. It is a good idea to begin a watercolour landscape by swiftly coating large background areas in a light colour to eliminate the unwanted white surface parts of the sheet.

Subsequently, @squint_ur_eyes might have covered the lower two-thirds of the paper with a light ochre or olive wash. The watercolourist must have painted the blurry fringes of the jungle trees while the blue sky was still semi-wet. What a great way to build up a watercolour painting carried out by the capable hands of this talented artist!

Painting the mid-ground of the watercolour landscape

Later, @squint_ur_eyes must have shaped the mid-ground, i.e. the lower dark trees and shrub line. Equally, the foreground down to the lower edge of the paper did receive a light olive-ochre wash. Dabbing the still-moist watercolour with a wet, semi-wet, or even a dry paintbrush allowed adding and subtracting pigments. Afterwards, the artist had to wait for the paint to dry, which would not have taken long in the tropical or sub-tropical climate in which he works. During the drying process, the watercolourist painted the three-quarter moon in the top right of the image.

Switching from wet-on-wet to wet-on-dry for the foreground

Once the watercolour sheet did dry up sufficiently, the artist did sketch the main protagonist of this landscape painting. That is the barren tree delineated in the foreground with fine paintbrush stroke lines on a dry surface. Hence the name wet-on-dry technique. You can spot the initial outlines of the tree trunk where it begins to disappear in the undergrowth.

With the tree silhouette firmly outlined, @squint_ur_eyes next painted the detailed bark and foliage. The watercolourist established the foreground shrubs with swift wet-on-dry brush strokes resulting in a gestural and sketchy look. Or maybe the tree was first made alive on this sheet, and then the bushes followed. Either way, the foreground features were painted wet onto a dry surface.

Finally, the artist used white watercolour pigment to sketch the branches and twigs across the undergrowth in the fuzzy foreground. Yet, he might have made these marks with a deductive technique, e.g. erasing or scraping with the back end of the paintbrush. Difficult to judge without having access to the original piece of art and being able to inspect the painted surface closely. The artist worked from the brightest hues to ever darker tones. It could well be that the darkest shadows on the tree’s bark got added when the artist sketched the dark branches onto the hazy foreground. The watercolourist painted both wet-on-dry.

In sum, masterful handling of watercolour painting techniques

Overall, we are looking at a highly successful watercolour painting. And owing to composition and blurred depth of field, the focal point remains the majestic, gaunt tree. It is still alive, bending diagonally from bottom left to top right across the image frame as if reaching up to the moon. Some barren branches tower high above its mighty trunk. Lush foliage emanates from a bough to the right and one to the left, separated by spatial depth. Both indicate that the plant is still alive. Again we find a raven or crow sitting on the treetop as a harbinger of decay.

Using the wet-on-wet technique to lay down the foundation of this watercolour painting yields a remarkably homogenous result much appropriate for a forest scene. This image offers a closeup section of the landscape. Like a portrait, it frames that single, lone tree reaching up and out of the impenetrable thicket of the dense jungle floor. The protagonist is left towering above a nebulous glade.

The wet-on-wet technique also created the very out-of-focus look one would appreciate in photography with a shallow depth of field. In other words, the tree is in sharp focus, while the distant forest appears utterly blurred. If the painter added the branches and twigs in the foreground in wet-on-wet, we would see an equally blurry foreground. Yet, this is not digital photography, with its technical possibilities and limitations, but a watercolour landscape painted en plein air and drawn from life. What an outstanding piece of art by artist @squint_ur_eyes.

Discover more about the art of watercolour painting by @squint_ur_eyes

I hope this article helped you appreciate the unbelievably beautiful watercolour painting by artist @squint_ur_eyes. And if you wish to see more of his art, then make sure you go to @squint_ur_eyes.

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