Playing with watercolor: my 11 exercises for the study of watercolor

Hello, friends!

For a whole month I have been studying watercolor. My passion began with a master class, where I painted watercolor landscape. I really enjoyed it. I wanted to learn the techniques of watercolor painting. Turns out I don't know anything about watercolor paper and paint.

I bought a book by an artist whose work I really liked. I would like to learn how to paint in this style. She's Jean Haines. I fell in love with her watercolors. They are so light, fluid, airy! I read her book "Paint Yourself Calm: Colourful, Creative Mindfulness Through Watercolour" and did the exercises in that book.

I read that Jane studied Chinese painting before she developed her own watercolor style!! I loved it! I thought that I loved her work because I saw something in it in common with Chinese painting - minimalism and white spaces on the sheet. I understand why she paints watercolors without sketches. I think we have something in common.

I'll show you my exercises and tell you about each. I'll also tell you about the paper I used. It was different paper. I wanted to test different brands of paper. I also bought a set of watercolors Sennelier. This honey watercolor famous French brand. Its peculiarity is that it has bright colors and long dries.

So, my exercises on the book Jean Haines "Paint Yourself Calm: Colorful, Creative Mindfulness Through Watercolour"

Exercise 1. Simple landscape

I should have taken my favorite colors. I chose purple, yellow and blue. I moistened the paper and painted the horizon line, then painted the sky and the"earth". After my work dried up, I saw that the horizon line was very similar to a whale. So I did a seascape with a yellow water ))) I took a thin brush and drew the whale's eyes and a fin.

Fabriano, 25% cotton, 200 g/m, grain fin

Exercise 2. Waterfall

I used different shades of blue. I painted horizontal stripes on a piece of paper, and then applied clean water at the top of the sheet. The water flowed down streams, blurred bands and boundaries. That's what happened.

Fabriano, 25% cotton, 200 g/m, grain fin

Exercise 3. Obstacles

First I painted a few circles, and then I wet the paper around. Then I painted over the wet paper. The paint did not flow on the white circles and dry paper. It was a great discovery for me! I also found that if you draw on a piece of paper with clean water and add colors to it, only this place will be painted with water. Watercolor paint does not go beyond the boundaries of wet spots.

It inspired me so much that I painted two works using this technique. It's called painting in the negative. First, I paint the background with water and add colors there. And then paint in white dry places.

Fabriano, 25% cotton, 200 g/m, grain fin

Exercise 4. Butterfly

I used the most expensive paper I had. The first drawing was a butterfly. I wet in clean water a piece of paper, left a dry spot in the form of a butterfly wing. Then I started adding paint to the wet surface of the paper.

Arches, 100% cotton, 185 g/m, fin

Exercise 5. Flowers

First, I painted the background, which consists of blue shades. It's amazing-watercolor paint flows where it will indicate After it has dried I drew flowers.

Arches, 100% cotton, 300 g/m, satin

Exercise 6. Green forest

Here I used several shades of paint - green and yellow. I added a lot of water to the top of the sheet and let it drain down to make green posts. Also in this exercise I used salt and spray technique.

Palazzo, 70% cotton, 280 g/m

Exercise 7. Meadow flowers

I paint this picture in several stages. First I painted the green grass. I used a brush and a rib of paper to paint the long blades of grass. Then I painted a yellow background to make the picture sunny. I put the film on the green part of the picture and crushed it to get the texture. I also painted orange flowers and put a piece of film on each of them. After drying, the flowers and grass got the texture.

Gosznak, 100% cellulose, 200 g/m, shell texture

Exercise 8. Poppy flowers

Poppies are my favorite flowers for drawing. I drew them with great pleasure. Here I used two colors - red and Indigo, as well as salt. I put salt in the heart of the flowers to create texture.

Fabriano, 25% cotton, 200 g/m, grain fin

Exercise 9. A huge sunflower

Also my favorite flower is sunflower. What a wonderful book!
First I painted the yellow petals and added some flowers for the middle of the sunflower. I put salt in the middle to create the texture. I also created a texture on the yellow petals with a film.

Fabriano, 25% cotton, 200 g/m, grain fin

Exercise 10. Lavender

I wanted to try to paint a picture in soft pastel colors. I used diluted colors of brown, pink, green and purple.

Exercise 11. Northern landscape

Here I mixed and played with colors and shades of purple. I think that the winter landscape turned out to be fabulous and unusual.

Fabriano, 25% cotton, 200 g/m, grain fin

I finished my first book of exercises. I have the next book. The book has other exercises and drawings. I think that I will continue to study watercolors. I also watch free watercolor webinars.

Cheers
@veta-less

#creative
#drawing
#painting