This school is designed to put you on the shortest path towards watercolor competency. It is also designed to guide you on one of the great journeys of your life; the study of your own mind. (More on this)
If your budget allows, you can just buy everything on my teacher's list. It's quick and easy. Just check off one of everything. You will have an inexpensive, yet “Professional” quality rig. Here is the link. (You will still want a sheet of something as a paper support and clips to keep it in place.)
The biggest obstacle to most beginners is the cost of materials. You must not care how the painting comes out. If you are tense about ruining it because of the cost of materials, you will ruin it. How big you paint matters a lot. Small paintings use smaller brushes, smaller paper and less paint. Small paintings take less time. The cost of the paper and paint must be les than you care about. The time it takes to paint it, must be less than you will miss.
I know you want to get onto painting, and that it's boring to take lessons on materials. Nevertheless, I do have a section with six such lessons. In the long run, you'll be better off to take them.
Take my first beginner lesson “Coloring Book”. In less than an hour you will be competent to start watercolor painting.
You're going to need some experience before you can make great paintings. I advise that you do not agonize over your first efforts. Paint them small, paint them quickly, enjoy doing them. Little children think they are playing. We know that they are in the deadly serious business of learning how to deal with the world. Take a lesson from little children. Play with your paints. It's the fastest route to achieving real art. And By the way, do not throw these first efforts out; even if you hate them. You may hate them now, but years from now, you may be quite proud of them.
There is an awfully lot of bad advice being given out under the guise of watercolor lessons. If someone tells you to tape your paper to a support, (It's counterproductive.) run away. if someone is showing you shortcuts to nowhere, such as salt, alcohol, crayons and the like, take a hike. It is not that these gimmicks don't work. It's just that they are a distraction rather than a valuable learning experience. Gimmicks are great when you are so good you don't need them.
A First Watercolor Lesson. It's about paint handling, and "value"
Here is a simple “coloring book” exercise which will equip you to dig into your first
painting.
You will learn how to make a “wash”, and how to adjust the “value” (the relative
difference between dark and light) of your wash.
Painting
Trees – Part 1
You need to get a “handle” on trees. They are fairly easy if you know how to approach
the task.
Tree color is also, an issue. In reality, I paint trees in any color I feel like at the moment,
but the beginner is going to want at least a little credibility. You need to know how to get the
right kinds of greens. And greens can also mean reds or blues or yellows when it comes to trees.
This lesson is full of tips and tricks for watercolor painting of trees.
Painting
Trees – Part 2
It’s good to know how to approach painting a tree, but that’s not enough. Part 2 is a
demonstration of how I do it, at least at the beginner level.
You will see how to paint in the leafy areas and then how to handle the trunk, branches and
twigs.
We will examine “Sky holes”, and the general “look” of a realistic tree painting.
Preparing
paper for wet in wet painting
It sounds easy, but you gotta do it right.
it is easy, but its not intuitive and the lesson is really short. Give it a watch unless
you are very confident in your wet in wet watercolor technique.
A
small barn makes a nice beginner landscape painting
In this simple yet far ranging painting will cover the beginnings of perspective drawing.
You will become conscious of light sources and the shadows that result from them. There will be some
easy, yet sophisticated concepts, introduced. These include implied edges, and massing objects to
solidify composition. Its also the first lesson which I am truly happy with. ( That does not mean
that I don't see flaws sticking out like mad. )
How To Paint Dawn New York and Sunset Skies - Sunrise / Sunset - Part 1 - Skies with multi hues.
These skies need to be smooth yet are very interesting. Here we paint a sunrise with an orange
red horizon fusing smoothly into a blue green sky. We are after convincing the viewer that they are
looking at what might be a photograph. The sky is not the focus of the painting, rather the backdrop
for a seascape, landscape. The mid ground is the actual subject but it is subtle, so it needs a dramatic
frame to focus the eye. That is supplied by the intense value of the foreground.
How
To Paint Water and Islands - Sunrise / Sunset - Part 2?
Poetically speaking, these are islands in the sky. In reality the are the props for the subject,which
is my favorite lighthouse. There is Fire Island off in the distance, and two other islands with the "snake
hill channel" between them forming the dramatic foreground. Ya gatta love the drama in this painting
and its all done with a few simple elements. The trick is the intense value and color contrasts
Lifting
and Painting The Lighthouse
- Sunrise / Sunset - Part 3 - Lifting out the lighthouse.
Here we see one of the many techniques used for lifting watercolor paint. Even though the
background sky is painted with a richly staining paint, we can lift enough of the paint to give the
impression of a white lighthouse. This is a real scene, and this is a real lighthouse. it is Fire
Island Light. It is part of my everyday world, and you can probably feel my reverence for the place.
Skies -Smooth and Blue - Blue Realistic Skies With Birds And Light Fluffy Clouds
This anything but simple lesson demonstrates how to paint realistic skies. We cover smooth graded washes, lifting clouds out of the background, and painting birds into it. We can use clouds and birds as design elements or to cover blemishes in the otherwise perfect sky. We are going to use our sky to paint a with a wet in wet marsh.
Then we will finish off the painting with a lesson on white. That's right, white watercolor. We will use it if wee need to to accentuate our clouds.
BEGINNER
ADVANCED
Watercolor
MATERIALS
BEGINNER
WATERCOLOR