I saw an exhibit of Jean Leuthner's nostalgia paintings last month that I really enjoyed. These paintings were done from old photos and do a good job of maintaining a snapshot quality and capturing nostalgia without putting in too much detail. The look is kind of hazy like a memory or an old photo that isn't quite clear.
These paintings were done for the "Emil Nolde" assignment in the watercolor course I took last fall. Some of Nolde's watercolor paintings were done on small pieces of slightly absorbent Japanese rice paper using very watery premixed paints. We looked at his paintings in the book Emil Nolde: Unpainted Pictures and then tried to create something similar.
I bought two different kinds of Japanese printmaking paper at Utrecht, also known as "rice paper" although it is not made of rice. The large sheets of paper were torn into quarters — the paper tears very nicely when it is folded and the crease is moistened with water. The bright colored paint was applied by pouring or with an eyedropper. This was done very experimentally. After I saw something I liked in the blotches of paint, I used black paint for the lines.
The top painting was based on a sunrise photo taken from my bedroom window. It was done on "Okawara Student" which was not really absorbent enough. The bottom painting was done on "Hosho" paper which is more absorbent and worked much better. For this I started with some random blotches but planned to make a face of some sort. The composition reminded me of a flower garden, so that is what it became.
When I was looking for information on Emil Nolde today, I found an interesting artist blog, Color Sweet Tooth blog, which has a post showing an example of watercolor progressions somewhat similar to what I was doing.
Kimmo Pälikkö is a Finnish artist. I discovered him when I saw a postcard of one of his paintings of lighthouses on the Wild Postcards blog (Note: my other blog is about postcards http://www.postcardy.blogspot.com/). Many of Pälikkö's paintings have been reproduced on postcards. According to Pälikkö's website "By 2009, over 1300 postcard motifs of his paintings have been produced and over 85 million postcards of his works have been printed."
There are many examples of his artwork online that can be viewed and/or purchased. What I especially liked about about his website are his books on watercolor painting techniques that can be read online in English.
Painting of a couple railroad employee's houses. These were built before the turn of the last century. The dozen or more homes were renovated in the 1960's 
