Barry Coombs demonstration page. I am currently in his Watercolour class.
Week 16, Fishing Floats
We are working with flat brushes cut with a small angle. It's quite hard to get used to a different brush AND a different style of painting. We are supposed to do hard shading rather than gradual blends.
The left painting is me struggling with my paintbrush. It's like trying to type with boxing gloves. I was hoping for composition and shading. I did not worry too much about colour.
On the right is my homework. I've had a chance to try out my paintbrush and now I'm paying attention to colour as well. Not stellar but not ruined either.
Using my small pieces of paper I did a bunch of quick studies. I'm finally getting the hang of these flat brushes.
Barry suggested we might enjoy using wax on our painting as a resist. It certainly adds some interest and helps increase texture.
Week 17, Little Glass Bottles
This exercise is about colour form and composition. We are to make no conscious effort to get transparency or shiny textures.
We continue to paint with the large flat brushes. These are not very good for detail.
Barry is constantly urging us to get up and look at the painting from further back.
We were also encouraged to use wax resists to help emphasize the white areas such as around the rims.
This exercise really makes you think about colour and how to represent shading in broad strokes.
Some homework above. Not particularly stellar yet. I'm working at it but have trouble getting a nice balance between shading and large brushes mark.
Another attempt looks better. Shading is less tired and looks more spontaneous.
On the left, yet another bunch of little pots. I think I've worked this subject to DEATH :)
I tried my hand at a few other little paintings. Click on the Grim Reaper to check them out.
Week 18, Rusty Dusty Boxes
On the left my class drawing, on the right my homework
Wonderful old rusty boxes and pots this week. We are painting with wide brushes and restricting the colours to a triad. Red, Blue and Raw Umber which has some yellow in it. It makes for some nice colours.
We were also supposed to leave the tops almost white for extra drama of the brightly lit tops.
On the left I try again. I think that's the nicest one yet!
On the right an experiment. The painting is done using only red and blue. The rest of the paintings also have raw umber.
I was trying to bend the rules a bit. I know that blue recedes and red comes forward. Instead I shaded with red to see if I could still get credible shape.
Week 19, Swatchilism
Right and left are paintings using broad brushes in swatches.
We started by using yellow as the light, blue as the dark and various colours for the fruit.
As in all our paintings the light is from the top.
I start experimenting with the technique.
Shading is made with broad strokes with my huge paintbrush and not blended.
More experiments. The first painting on the line above is a quite close copy of the demonstration by Barry. I'm not sure I'm blown away by the method but its a technique that can result in very fresh clean paintings.
On the left is another experiment.
Week 20, Earthenware pots
On the left my class painting. On the right same subject but more effort went in the drawing. I also tried to make it 'sunnier'. Mixed succes I think.
A couple of studies with the same colours. It makes a pleasant warm picture.
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6 to 10
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11 to 15
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16-20
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21-25
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26-30
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31-35
Weeks
36-40
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41-45
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46-50
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After each watercolour lesson I take I try to do several paintings at home to solidify the lesson.
Because watercolour success is so much in the brush handling skill and just plain technique, the nuts and bolts of the medium, practice is really important.
I'm lucky I can draw and sketch quite well and that I have good skills in colour and composition. Not to say I can't improve but rather as a solid base to build on.
My 4 years in Design School helped with this.
Watercolour is very much the skill of seeing rather than rendering.
It reminds me of the marker rendering that we were taught in school. I was never particularly clever about it but I eventually got it.
If you decide to try painting get resonable quality paints. Poor materials are discouraging. These are available online:
Winsor & Newton Professional Water Color Compact Set
I also have a number of DaVinci Paints and I really like them, particularly the yellow: Da Vinci Paints Watercolor Paint Quinacridone (Set of 6)
The same thing goes for paper, Cold Pressed Arches paper is what I use, cold pressed. Hot pressed is much smoother.Arches Aquarelle Watercolor Block 140 lb. cold press 9 in. x 12 in. pad
Arches makes many other sizes: arches paper
As far as paintbrushes I'm not as fussy and I've found that many of the new synthetics work really well. Choose a round one with a good point, I also like a nice flat 3/4 inch brush. Princeton Series 4050 Synthetic Sable Watercolor Brushes 6 short handle round
These would work for a start, or maybe slightly larger.