New York Skyline Beyond the Cornfield

Beyond The Cornfield, watercolor on paper, 9" x 12"

There are several things wrong with this picture, but I like it anyway. I like it because there's something of me in it.

 It started out as this exercise, from The Complete Book of Watercolors in a Weekend, like most of the others. The exercise is called "Cornfield".

But I thought, no way am I painting those dinky trees and shrubs in the distance again! That perfect blue sky deserved something better.

But what exciting scene could there be beyond a cornfield? A city skyline, of course! And what city has a more exciting skyline than New York City? Finding a picture of the New York skyline on the web was an easy task.

But there had to be a transition between the cornfield and the buildings. I found the answer in David Dewey's book, The Watercolor Book. It was this sketch.

It's a view of New York City from Central Park.

I had my transition.

Apart from the fact that my painting looks amateurish, the things that are wrong with it are:

•  When transferring the skyline to my picture, my stencil moved up a bit, which made all the buildings list to the left. I didn't notice it till I had applied the color. Serves me right for not stepping back often enough.
• I'm not sure if the line between the vegetation and the buildings should be so defined. Perhaps it should be wavy, like Mr. Dewey's.
• Perhaps I should have simplified the skyline.

Aside from that, there's something wrong with my scanner. It doesn't pick up the colors correctly. Those yellow windows -- another idea I picked up from Mr. Dewey -- are a lot yellower in my original. And my cornfield isn't that orange. It's raw sienna with a bit of burnt sienna. I tried fixing this with Photoshop but I couldn't figure it out.

I long for a good teacher these days, someone to guide me in these experiments.