WATERCOLOUR WOES & WOWS

My painting coach has encouraged me to explore the world of watercolours and if I'm honest it's been quite a battle! I would never have chosen this medium myself, having been unexcited by a lot of the watercolours I've seen, due to their pastel, often flat nature. I'd heard it's a really hard medium to master and wasn't sure I wanted to bother, having looked at the results!

I purchased all the bits and had my first go.

I admit I didn't go into this with the most positive of attitudes but was really surprised by how negative and intimidating I found the experience. It sounds silly to admit it but I cried painting this piece, engulfed by feelings of inadequacy and frustration! The result doesn't look too bad so what was that all about?

my first attempt

I think it had a lot to do with what I wrote in a past post – I hate being a beginner! I normally like experimenting and learning new things but at this stage in my journey I was feeling impatient to be much further down the line – confident and successful, not clueless and pants!

my first experiments

But watercolours, especially, pushed all my negative buttons, why?

1. the colours weren't strong enough
2. they kept blending together and everything ended up green or brown
   
3. it was all so permanent, each mark, each splash of water and you were committed, no real potential for layering and interacting, it's all so thin and flat
   
4. the materials were so expensive
5. there seemed a lot of preparation
6. moan, moan, moan!

I was being encouraged to be playful, to work on many pieces at the same time, layering and splashing which sounded nice in theory. In practice I was really aware of how much money I'd already sunk into this undesired medium, so felt an internal pressure to produce masterpieces each time I put brush to paper and this really stifled me.

...hessian, tights, clingfilm, masking tape, rusty washers...

Watercolours had also been introduced as an extension to my doodling process with the suggestion I could pray and worship whilst painting. However the angst I was feeling felt far from worshipful.

So what did I do?

I am normally quite a determined and tenacious person, so I dug deep, I asked some friends to pray (yes it had been genuinely upsetting me and I needed supernatural help), I did my research, and I committed to embracing this challenge, to putting in the hours needed.

Research
I trawled Pinterest until I started finding some inspiration – watercolours I actually liked. Here is my Watercolour Pinterest board. I followed artists on Instagram joining in with colourplay challenges they set and asking them questions.

see pinterest board for artwork credits

I searched Youtube for techniques I liked – clingfilm, cheesecloth, pipettes, heat guns (coming across even more materials to purchase)!
I learnt about paper types and weights, stretching paper on boards, watercolours blocks and inks, tubes vs pans, student vs professional grade paint.

I decided I liked the smooth paper which I discovered is called 'Hot pressed' or 'NOT' (as in not cold), I realised it was more economical to purchase large sheets from Hobbycraft and cut them up into a variety of sizes. I bought 9mm plywood at Ridgeons, who cut a number of drawing boards for me from the large sheets they sell. I set about learning to stretch my paper so it doesn't buckle... and then how to get it off the boards again once finished!

I learnt that the student grade paint I bought to start with was going to give me grainy and low lustre results. My teacher suggested I buy just the primary colours of the professional quality mega pricey tubes and I could definatley see the difference in colour vibrancy. On Youtube I'd seen people use Ecoline watercolour inks and get vivid results, so I bought a small sellection to trial, which I loved and so now have bought a larger collection to play with.

student grade - W&N professional grade - Inktense wc blocks - Ecoline wc inks

Embracing the challenge
I decided to engage with the playful experimentation necessary for learning, I needed to forget about the cost of the materials, not seeing each piece of paper or squeeze of paint being 'this' much money but rather the cost as a whole, being an investment in me learning something new. I like working big and messy, so I put large pieces of paper on the floor and splashed/splatted paint, even walked paint over them making watercolour footprints.
I still find having a 'not caring about the results' attitude difficult (which seems to be important when experimenting) but am doing my best to hang loose. I have found that failed attempts become pieces to play with or can often work well when cut into smaller parts.

Accident vs intention

I've realised that one of my issues with learning watercolours is that I paint to express myself and to worship. There is a wonderful freeflowing quality to watercolour painting, it has a mind of it's own. But, especially when new to this, there is little intentionality possible, it's all just happy accidents. It might look nice, sometimes, randomly, but it's not me expressing myself. I think it's this, as well as having to concentrate on technique, that causes the distance I currently feel from being able to worship through watercolours. This is, of course, fine. My desire to learn a new way of being creative is, I believe, in itself honouring to God. And it's early days, as I grow in knowing how to manipulate the paint and water, the potential for intentionality and self expression will grow.

So that's been my experience of beginning to learn to use watercolours. More downs than ups, more fight than reward yet, but I feel I'm starting to find some things within this medium that I could develop and run with.
Here are my most current attempts. Techniques I am enjoying at the moment are blowing with a straw, chasing dribbles with a heat gun, trapping paint under plastic, drawing with a pippette, dragging with a toothpick and bleaching with water.
If you'd like to follow my watercolour journey, I'm keeping a watercolour diary album on facebook, sharing my discoveries, experiments and the results in more detail.

I've recently rejigged this website to include a 'work on paper' page, deleting my photography page (as I'm at my page limit without paying for an upgrade). So this challenge is well and truely being embraced!