The last time I painted anything I was in 8th grade art class and that’s 60 years ago. OK, I tried to paint part of a cupboard door once and my husband had to rescue the door and me. It is HARD!
We both love watercolor and own about 10 paintings, landscapes, all with lots of trees and are quiet, peaceful scenes, fall or winter. We are drawn to paintings that convey a sense of peace.
Learning to paint always seemed something beyond me, something that took skill and time and talent – far more talent than I would ever have. (I’m pretty realistic about this.) But oh, so desirable! Finally I decided to try. My goal was to have fun with color, thought I could learn to make appealing washes of color, even if nothing ever looked like anything recognizable. This painting by Suzanne Mays is a good example that I like and might could aspire to do – someday. She uses several simple, beautiful colors, with great skill and lovely balance on the page to show the impression of winter trees and a strong feeling of peace and solitude. I would like to do that!
First was to get a box of paints and dig out some of Dave’s paper. The paints are the Prang 16 color kids’ set, which is actually rather decent, and came with a brush. Paper is watercolor/charcoal, not so good. These were perfectly fine to see whether I liked it before investing in better. The answer is Yes!
With no idea how to even start, other than pick up a brush, dunk in water, wet the paint and put on paper, it was time to find an online demo or two. The internet is an amazing source of free, good quality demos on just about anything, including watercolor!
My first attempt was a color wheel, but it was hard to see which paint pans held each color. Lesson 1: Make a legend that maps location in paint box to color. Done.
The Postman’s Knock demonstrates how to make a circle into a sphere with shading – and it worked! Wow! Lesson 2: Shading is tricky but yes, it’s doable. And essential. She also recommended some basic beginner paints and brushes which I got from Amazon. Winsor Newton Cotman watercolors. Artegria brushes, Mr. Pen Palette. I got other brushes I didn’t like so won’t recommend and some paper, Amazon Basics cold pressed 130 weight and Meeden 130 weight block.
A good friend who is a trained, skilled artist came up a couple afternoons. We painted an apple with several colors. Lesson 3: Yes, you can blend colors but it’s hard to tell what they are without testing. Plus you still must use shading. Her apple looked edible, mine was better than a red blob with streaks but only because I put a stem on it.
We later did an arrangement with an orange, lemon plus a vase holding a coleus stem. The vase has several colors, sandy with random streaks of darker brown or gray, gray top and the coleus is dark green with red. Those were very difficult. My orange looks like an orange and part of the coleus is ok too. The rest? Ah, let’s move on shall we?
I found a video series by Australian artist Joe Cartwright. He is an excellent teacher who does landscapes with a slightly abstract style that very much appeals to me. I have been following along plus bought both his books (here and here) which supplement the videos.
The first few classes were disasters. My nightfall sky was supposed to blend the blues, purples and crimson to orange but ended up looking like streaks on the paper. The two color wheels weren’t too bad but the sea/sky study in brush strokes was another misfire and so was the sea. My first breakthrough was his video on painting rocks as some of mine look like rocks! With real highlights and everything! I switched to using the new paper I got which works much better and keep learning and trying.
There are many watercolor how-to books online for free too and your library likely has some too. I’m working through some of those exercises along with the Joe Cartwright videos and finding some success but far more learning and lots of fun.
Happy painting!
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