Paintings 116 and 117, Pigeon Point Lighthouse & "A Good Crop"

I'm prepping for my Sunday church class in which we'll be painting lighthouses. This time of year, the mustard is in bloom and covers entire fields so I wanted to put those Bumblebee Yellow blossoms in the foreground. I couldn't decide on the size of the lighthouse, but chose to make the lighthouse about 3" tall and then traced and cut out 22 copies of the stencil on contact paper for the students before I painted Pigeon Pt. Lighthouse (watercolor, 7.5 x 11").

I thought the above painting was decent and my beginning students could do a nice job with it, but when I tossed a smaller mat over it and cropped it, I got this:

Viola! Same painting, cropped, but a much better composition.

I painted it again with a vertical format, Pigeon Pt. Lighthouse (watercolor, 11 x 7.5") with a 4.5" lighthouse and the keeper's quarters in front. I find this format much better and like the salt action in the foreground. Now I am off to trace and cut out 22 copies of the 4.5" stencil for the class. My take home lesson is to do the sample paintings before I cut out the stencils for the whole class.

A note on stencils:

To make my stencils, I take photos of the subject, print the image on photo paper and cut out the object, in this case the lighthouse and keeper's quarters. With a ultra fine Sharpie, I trace the stencil onto clear contact paper and cut out the shape, trying to cut inside the sharpie marks. I stick the contact paper to the watercolor paper in place for a balanced composition and paint the background over the top.