Water & Colour

Enjoy the diversity of watercolour, and the many ways it can look and be.

Warm Up Exercises

Contour Lines - Using the image above draw the simple outlines of the hills, notice their curves & angles.

Sketcherly - draw the same image adding a little shading to the hills

Eyes Wide Shut: With shut eyes, we will come around & give you an object for you to explore through the senses other than sight.

Eyes Wide Open: open your eyes, notice what what you didn't see when your eyes were closed, the finer detail, intricate beauties.

Exercise One:

Banded Landscapes: Watercolour Techniques with Tape

Learn to manipulate watercolour to your unique needs playing with the techniques shown above.

1. Find white space and a clean edge for your first piece through application of the masking tape to create a border to paint within.

2. Select your colour palette from the watercolours provided (these don't need to be traditional!).

3. In strips/bands, experiment using the watercolour techniques above: "wet on dry" : "dry on dry" : "dry on wet".

4. Perhaps try adding salt to one of your wettened strips for an added element of creative exploration!

Exercise Two:

Sand & Stone

Shifting from macro scenes to micro, find inspiration from natural sources: the stones & shells in front of you.

Pay closer attention to the intricate, the detail and the shadows.

Apply water, then slowly your watery colour.

Play with the different sized paintbrushes to manipulate the colour on the page, using intricate strokes/mark making, atop the broader watery strokes.

Imply features of the objects rather than exactly what you see.

Exercise Three:

Sweeping Landscape

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Inspiration Artist: Gretchen Albrecht [Banded Sunshine on the Horizon]

Apply masking tape to create a border.

Paint a single strip/band of clear water.

Apply a drop of fluid acrylic colour to this watery strip.

Gently stretch & coerce each droplet along the strip.

Pay attention to the intimate detail & shadowing, move the colour with care & mindfulness.....

Repeat, adding new strips to build up your piece.

Leave space between the strips, join some for different affect...

Watch the colours compliment and mingle with each other upon your page.