Here is my finished watercolor painting, along with the progress shots along the way, of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water” residence….Since my architectural illustration practice usually involves deadlines and time crunches, it’s nice to paint something that doesn’t need to be done at any particular time….and I enjoy the subject matter immensely….Actually this painting is the second in a series of watercolor paintings I have planned that feature the great works of architecture of the 20th Century….I enjoy exploring a new medium, and playing around with the possibilities….as with anything, the more you do it, the more comfortable it is, and the more comfortable you get with trying new methods–basically having more fun with it….There’s a greater sense of freedom because this is not a commissioned work–I’m just doing it for my own amusement….As an artist, the goals are to use a full range of values, to use complementary colors, and when the work is finished, it should have a focus–a place for the eye to go comfortably and effortlessly. Since this painting features a Frank Lloyd Wright design, I wanted to tie the architecture to the natural setting quite closely, by using the same color palette as much as possible in both architecture and landscape. Wright was a proponent of “organic architecture” as he called it–the idea being that buildings spring into the imagination by the greatest teacher–Nature itself….and you are honoring Nature by paying great attention to it and not copying it, but instead learning its principles, appreciating it, and then expressing your own unique designs which are inspired by it….One way I tried to convey that in this painting was to treat the horizontal elements of the building similarly to the horizontal ledges of the waterfall below the house, as if the house has been formed into the same shape as the stone of the waterfall–by nature….
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