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How to Paint

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Let me help you get started. It can be hard knowing where to begin, so I will make it a little easier for you.

Materials


Here are my top tips (and they come free of any official endorsements!).

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PAINT

When you start out, aim to work with what you have already. There are some very reasonable sets of watercolours out there that work perfectly well to get you started. If you don't have any I would recommend going for a small Cotman (by Windsor and Newton) half pan set. Too many colours can be overwhelming and bigger is not always better. 

 

BRUSHES

The same goes for brushes. Start by playing around with what you have already. You don't need dozens of different brush shapes or special animal hair brushes  (despite what the You Tube tutorials tell you). It is amazing the variety of effects you can achieve with a simple, synthetic round brush. If you don't have any, then size 8 round (pointed) brush is a good place to start or a small set with a couple of different sizes and shapes. Pro Arte Masterstroke are one of my favourite entry level choices however many own brands are excellent too.

 

PAPER

If there is one area in which I would endorse splashing out, it has to be on the paper. If you paint the same brush stroke on a selection of different papers, you will have potentially very varied results; the rate at which the paint dries and the paper buckles will vary and some effects simply won't work on poorer quality paper.

 

Search for 300gsm cold pressed watercolour paper (which is thick and lightly textured) and if it is non-branded and fairly cheap, then it probably won't be worth buying. My favourite options for day to day painting is Cass Art's 300gsm cold pressed jumbo pads, and my ultimate-paper-of-joy is Arches Grain Fin Cold pressed 300gsm. 

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I also recommend having a good quality cartridge paper sketch pad on the go for practising and experimenting. Though it won't stand up to large areas of the page being very wet, many subjects (such as practising leaves and flowers, or mark making) will work sufficiently well.

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OTHER USEFUL ITEMS

Always have either paper towel or a cloth to hand when painting, for dabbing excess paint from the brush. Other useful materials are a thin black waterproof fine liner pen (like UniPin 0.2), and some masking tape or washi tape. 

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Before you get started

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BE WARNED (!)

Watercolour is a bit like a labradoodle (yes really). It has a charming personality and is often very beautiful, yet has a tendency to do its own thing. Sometimes that will turn out well and sometimes it might not.  To enjoy it, you have to accept it for what it is and try not to freak out should it suddenly misbehave. The more time you spend with it the more you will be able to anticipate how it is going to behave, and, over time, you will be able to persuade it to do delightful things.

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EMBRACE PRACTICE

Be prepared to practise. Each time you put brush to paper you are building muscle memory, whilst gradually building up experience and learning about:

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  • How much water to put on the brush (loading)

  • How deep your colours turn out (concentration / dilution)

  • How the paint behaves as it starts to dry

  • How to achieve different shapes with the brush

  • What happens when you mix, layer and merge different colours

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DITCH THE COMPARISON

We have all been there. You watch a seven second sped up tutorial on YouTube and then, when your painting doesn't turn out anything like it, disappointment sets in and you end up shoving your paints back in the drawer till it has become a distant memory. 

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There will always be other people who seem to be painting amazing things with minimal effort but comparing your journey to theirs will only suck the joy out of the process. What you aren't seeing are all the many previous versions that ended up in the bin, and the effort it took to persevere enough to build those skills.

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If you focus less on the end result of each painting session looking a certain way, and instead on being curious about what the paint is doing, and noticing what you are learning in the process, you will find it far more rewarding.

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If you get stuck, or feel like you don't know why something isn't turning out the way you intend it repeatedly, get in touch and I will do my best to respond and help you out.

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Ideas to get started

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So, you have your materials to hand, you have a jar of water and a piece of paper towel (or a dampish cloth) and you are poised to get painting.. but where to start? Here are a few ideas to get you going:

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THE RANDOM APPROACH

Fill a page with blobs of random colours. Let some of them touch, and keep some separate. Make some paler and some darker (i.e. more or less diluted). Notice what happens when they merge into each other, see which colour combinations you like, practice making some of the blobs only just wet yet others like bulging puddles, and then see what happens as it dries.

 

CONCENTRATION / DILUTION PRACTICE

In pencil draw 5 circles in a row on your page (roughly the size of a watch face). Make a puddle of water on your palette. Pick any colour (apart from yellow) then add a teeny bit of the colour into your puddle of water so that it is super pale and watery. Use this pale paint mix to fill in the first box. Then add a little more of the same colour into your paint mix (creating a slightly deeper shade) and paint in the next one. Continue so that you have a row of boxes which gradually go from a lighter colour to a much deeper shade. 

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COLOUR SWATCHES

Some people like dividing their page up into a grid for this, but you don't have to. Simply make a blob of a colour, rinse your brush and dab out some of the moisture, then drag out the blob a little with the damp brush so that it is lighter one end than the other. Repeat this for all the colours in your palette. You might find it helpful to label what the different colours are called as a handy reference.

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MARK MAKING

Make a puddle of paint on your palette (any colour). Using one brush at a time, practice making as many different marks and shapes with your brush as possible. Make brush strokes from different angles, in different directions and speeds, with varying amounts of pressure (sometimes just using the tip and other times pressing it right down flat against the paper).  Repeat the exercise with any other brushes you have.

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Some videos to whet your appetite
Fancy seeing some more? You can find plenty here:                
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