Red Barn Snow Scene

I had a break from landscape painting practice over Christmas but I'm getting back into it now. This was supposed to be for my December Watermedia challenge, but I've only just finished it. First time I've painted snow and it didn't go too badly.

More Landscape Sketches

More of my landscape practice sketches..

Watersoluble and dry Coloured Pencils

Watersoluble and Dry Coloured Pencils

Watercolour paints plus Watersoluble and Dry Coloured Pencils

Penhale Sands Sketches

Just realised I forgot to post these landscape sketches of Penhale Sands in Cornwall...

Lots of Landscape Sketching Practice

I've been continuing to practice my landscape sketching in water media as much as possible. Here are some of the better ones:

Landscape Sketches

I've been wanting to have a go at learning landscape techniques for a long while and I've finally started. I've been reading up and watching tutorials, and have started a practice sketchbook. I started out drawing with ink lines but I don't like the look of the ink lines so I've abandoned the ink pen and now I just do a quick light pencil sketch to map in the main shapes before adding colour with watercolour paint and watercolour pencils.

With initial ink pen sketches.

I definitely prefer without the ink lines.

So I'm finally on my way with my landscape learning journey. I'm keen to keep it loose and immediate,  not to tighten up and focus on detail (as I tend to with botanicals and wildlife). I think a lot of practice is going to be needed, but I'm really enjoying it, which is all that really matters.

Painting with Distress Ink Pads

More seasonal painting! I love snow scenes.

 

I used to keep my Distress Ink pads in a drawer and hardly ever used them. But I recently bought a nice wooden storage unit for them (second hand but in perfect condition. Total bargain!) and now that I can see them all displayed for easy access, I'm suddenly inspired to use them.

 

I used a mask/stencil to get the basic outline for the trees in the background, then painted them in freehand with a waterbrush (ink pads smeared onto my glass tabletop for a palette). I painted the hare freehand with a waterbrush, using several layers of soft colour.

 

 

Seasonal Painting

A simple little robin for my Christmas cards. Watercolour plus coloured pencil. I printed them onto watercolour paper and hand-finished each card with an additional layer of coloured pencil, so each card is unique.

 

 

Abstract Seascapes

Abstract seascape using watercolour and black ink. I was experimenting so I painted several, and these were the most successful. I like the breezy feel of this one.

 

 

Slightly dodgy photo of this one, as it was too big to scan.

 

 

Blue Cityscape

More sketchy experimentation using watercolour, black ink and white pen.

 

 

Abstract Landscape Watercolour/Collage

I started this with the intention of doing a pure watercolour painting, but I ended up adding a few black collage elements at the end. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.

 

 

 

Bright Sunny Watercolour Practice

I love bright, lively loose watercolour paintings so I'm trying to learn how to create that look. I used watercolour paints for the initial washes, then some detail over the top with watercolour pens. I'm making a lot of mistakes but hopefully learning from them, and it's fun to use such lovely bright cheerful colours.

 

 

 

 

Bold Tulip Painting

I really enjoyed doing the pansy tutorial, so I've decided to do some more large close-up flowers using my own reference photos. Tulips are my favourite spring flowers, so I've started with those.

Pansy From Tutorial

I found a very useful tutorial online by Birgit O'Connor, who makes lovely bold watercolour paintings of flowers. I finished my version in my own way, but following the tutorial was a great learning exercise, especially about how to get the water to carry colour in large areas. Here's my effort (based on Birgit's original).

 

 

Limited Colours Landscape Sketches

I've seen some great landscapes recently using very  limited palettes (just two or three colours) so I've decided to have a go. Here's my first sketch - I had no plan so I ended up using watercolour pencil, watercolour paint, pencil and acrylic paint! As I generally struggle with colour a bit, I actually find it enjoyable to be limited to three colours.

 

 

 

This one has a bit more colour but still muted.Watercolour crayons for this one, plus a bit of watercolour paint on top.

 

 





 

 

 

 

 



Watercolour Practice - Daffodils

More watercolour practice. This is one of the step-by-step projects in 'Ready to Paint - Watercolour Flowers' by Wendy Tait. I've cropped it down though, for a more modern look.

 

 

A Couple of Hares

More watercolour practice - this time some hares. This one is just watercolour paint (with me trying not to be heavy handed!)

 

 

And this one started out with a watercolour wash, but then I fancied giving him a bit more texture so I got stuck in with some coloured pencil (another medium I'm interested in at the moment. I've seen some amazing coloured pencil work recently...yet another thing I want to learn...I need more time!)

 

 

 They both need backgrounds really - maybe I'll return to them and add something.

 

Watercolour Practice

I've been trying to learn watercolour technique using books and tutorials. I've had some disasters (I tend to be heavy-handed with colour and tone) but I think I'm starting to make some progress.

 

I've traced some outline drawings (pigment pen) from reference photos and scanned them, so I can print them off multiple times. This allows me to concentrate on practicing the watercolour techniques without worrying about having to spend ages doing a drawing each time. Here's one of Chichester Cathedral with watercolour washes.

 

 

Still not very accomplished but definitely an improvement on earlier attempts (which weren't fit to be seen and went straight in the bin!) 

Flowers at Sunset

I'm continuing to try out different shapes/sizes and colour combinations, so today I'm using a background of sunset colours instead of greenery. Also trying out a tall thin format, which might work well on a card.

II used the same simple techniques as before, but with different colours. Wishy washy background to start with, and once that was completely dry, some simple flower shapes painted over the top.

I added some stems using a water-soluble pencil, with little knots under the flower heads and some extra ones to add some buds.

I then used painted water onto the stems to activate the water-soluble pencil, and painted in the buds and the one flower centre. A quick crop to trim off the mess, and voila!

I used a similar background for some more Alliums (which are really fun to paint)...

 

 

It looked like this at the halfway stage:

 

More Flowers, Layer by Layer

I'm still enjoying painting flowers with watercolours, and am trying out different shapes and colours. Printed onto velvet paper, this one should work nicely on a card or notelets.

 

 I remembered to scan this one at every stage from beginning to end.  The very first thing I did was do some practice sketches to get a feel for the shapes of the flowers:

To start painting, I sloshed on a very wishy washy background using watercolour paint.
I left that to dry and then sketched in the flowers and stems using water soluble pencils:

I then painted in some translucent background leaves/stems using watercolour paint, and painted the flowers (except the centres) using watercolour paint over the soluble pencil (the pencil and paint merge together):

I finished off by painting in the yellow centres of the flowers, then masking them off and adding paint spatter.  I also cropped the picture to a nice card-friendly square shape:

It's my friend's birthday this week so I might make a set of little notelets as a gift for her.

Easy Watercolour Wild Flowers

I saw some pretty framed watercolour prints in a shop (I think the artist's name was Catharine Stephenson - really lovely work). Anyway, I couldn't afford them so I wondered if I could make something similar myself...

 

 

They were quite easy to do...here are some of the pictures at different stages:

Layer 1: Wet the whole sheet of watercolour paper and paint a very wet background wash of two or three light colours (I used yellow, bright green, pale blue). Leave to dry completely:

Layer 2: Sketch in the big flowers very lightly, to make a nice composition. (This is a different background - I used cotton buds on this one while it was drying to make little white dots):

Layer 3: Paint in some translucent grass/leaves/flower shapes to add a layered effect. It doesn't matter if they are a bit of a mess - they will disappear into the background. You can actually do this before or after sketching in the big flowers.

 

 

Layer 4: Now paint in some mid-strength small flowers and then your main flowers, being really bold with colour, size and shape. They need to look striking so the background will fade back.

 

Finish off by masking out the flower heads and adding paint spatter in all the colours used. Tiny dots of white Posca pen also work well.

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