Watercolour Duck & White Swans in Wendy’s class

In one of Wendy’s classes we painted a white duck in watercolour; I painted the same duck Wendy demonstrated. Watercolour is still a difficult medium for me to use, so it was easier to follow by instruction. Even though much more time was spent on it, mine didn’t come out half as nice as the tutor’s or the original.

The next week we were to select an image of a white bird to paint in acrylics. Painting in acrylics is much easier and I drew an image from Paint My Photo. I was happy with the final painting and even signed it :).

Watercolour Portrait & Chinese Painting with Wendy

Previous class practice drawing eyes, noses and mouths came in handy for our next assignment - a tonal portrait study.

Tonal Study

Wendy supplied photos to choose from; my dad and I both love Clint Eastwood so…

Colour Study

We also did a colour study, not my favourite. I seem to have trouble when I need to add colour. 

In our last class we learned to do Chinese painting; practicing bamboo with ink and Chinese brushes on cartridge paper.

For the final project we made bookmarks on watercolour paper; it was a nice ending to the class. By adding a hole and a ribbon I now have a lovely bookmark to remind me of the class.

This type of painting interested me so adding to my library, once again, I bought a book: ‘Chinese Brush Painting Handbook’ by Pauline Cherrett. The only trouble was I didn’t have the right brushes. Wendy had lent us inks and brushes for the class so I used my regular watercolour brushes and paint.

I only achieved a halfway decent fish.  Someday I will buy brushes, read the book again, and try to make more paintings.

Watercolour with Wendy

After a few weeks of drawing in Wendy’s class we started to paint with watercolour. My plan was to buy the least expensive Cotman watercolour set to be sure I liked the medium. Brushes, however needed to be good quality and Wendy recommended ‘Rosemary & Co’;  shipping is £1 or free on orders over £30. Better watercolour paper has to be bought in individual sheets; or lesser quality can be purchased in pads. Wendy had paper for us to buy, sometimes I used the good paper and sometimes A4 paper from a pad. The pads are available in hot pressed, cold pressed and rough. Someday I’ll figure out the difference, besides the hot pressed being smoother.

To start with we did a colour wheel, mixing colours with red, blue & yellow.

My first watercolour came out better than expected, it was a tonal study so we only used one colour. 

The second was o.k. but not as impressive as with the first. For this we used two colours.

For the third we used all colours and it was the least impressive. So the moral is, for me at least, the less colours the better.

O.k. maybe I just had a bad day because the fourth was an ink and wash and it was kinda good. Other classmates had more vibrant colours; mine was washed out looking. I don’t know if it’s the paint, maybe I need artist quality. 

The sheep and bird I did at home… really liking the ink and wash technique.