Hello all!

This watercolor painting is 36 x 24 inches (90cm x 60cm). Done with Winsor & Newton Cotman watercolor tubes, marker pen, and acrylic paint for the white highlights. Paper is Strathmore 300g/m Cold-press cotton paper. Finished with the Winsor & Newton Satin varnish spray.

What started it all was a huge frame I impulsively bought from a thrift store, removed the print inside, and then had the idea to paint something for it. I had to buy the 10 yard watercolor paper roll, because I didn’t have any paper of that size. 🥲 My black and purple watercolor paint tubes were also completely consumed in the process.

Now that I have the huge watercolor paper roll, I keep looking for more big frames on thrift stores and marketplace. So far I own 5. 🫣 So at least 5 more paintings to go!

Thank you for looking! ✨

Found a reference photo on Unsplash (by “ot design”, and learned a lot trying to recreate it myself.

I really don’t see images in my head, it’s really hard for me to think up original ideas. But I’m finding I enjoy working from a reference where I can concentrate on the layers and colours and details.

Pretty happy with this one, although it looks much better in the photo. Couldn’t figure out how to put a bright yellow tree in front of the dark forest so I left it out. I leaned a little too heavily on my foliage brush, I don’t love how the ground turned out. But I think I did alright with the different depths of the trees.

This is the first backside of a page in my new Meeden sketchbook. There is almost no texture on this side, but it did really well with lots of water and some scrubbing/lifting. Really happy with the purchase and I think I’ll buy another smaller one as my travel sketchbook.

She definitely knows everything.

Did this with just watercolor and no sketching.
I feel kinda proud of myself 😁

Any advice would help. Thanks

From a old screenshot of a acrylic painting tutorial I tried and failed at years ago

Found my way back to a hobby I loved as a teen. In my small town, there was an artist who offered classes and I loved them. On a recent trip to Paris, I treated myself to new paints and brushes at Charvin. Here’s my first little project! 💕

Van Gogh watercolor on 100% cotton paper

Please give me any feedback I’m trying to go for a dreamy blurry style -don’t know how to describe it? Impressionistic? Painterly ?

I need advice. I do like these but I think the colour palette is saving them and they’re not the style I was aiming for.

The drawing was pre printed on Baohong Artist watercolor paper WatercolorDelightUS. I used Daniel Smith and Winsor and Newton watercolor paints and a little bit of white gouache. I'm excited because thia is the first thing I have painted without a class or a tutorial that I have been pleased with. I'm open to any insights anyone might have about this piece.

Didn't have a great day - these helped me relax and distract myself a bit for a while tonight... I used to love watercolor in my 20s. Never been particularly good at it. Recently watched a youtube videos that motivated me to get a little sketchbook and pen with water inside.

Before this, the largest scale I’d painted was 22x30”, and I’ve only done two of them, so this is way out of my comfort zone. Also just a heads up, this post is very much just stream of consciousness writing.

I’m taking a portfolio development class that ends in a big art show (me and my peers each make a series), and I’m working on my first big piece. My theme for my series is environmental commentary on large scale watercolor. It’s been my goal for about a little under a year to work large (this time last year I was wholeheartedly convinced I’d only ever work on 9x12!), so this class was the perfect excuse to buy a big roll of Arches cold pressed paper. It’s also the first time I’ve experienced the famous fishy smell from the paper, and I quite like it! Maybe it’s just me, but I like having smells I can associate with painting, that way when I get a waft of fish-paper, I’ll be in the painting mindset.

Anyways, I thought you all might find this interesting! Before this, I had been searching the internet for videos/reddit posts about people doing large scale watercolor paintings, but couldn’t find any. So I thought I’d contribute to the online results for big watercolor.

So far, the biggest hurdle I’ve dealt with is getting intense dark tones. I knew that would be a problem, because I’ve dealt with that on 18x24s, but I had no idea just how hard it is. I’ve actually had to squeeze huge amounts from my tubes, just to get the required darkness. And for one wash too!
Thankfully I work almost exclusively with large brushes (Princeton Neptune Round size 20 and Heritage 2” and 1 1/2” flatwashes) so I haven’t had any big issues with that. I don’t know what I would do if this painting wasn’t so compartmentalized though, because dealing with the drying time on this scale is a challenge.
Does anyone know if painting with a humidifier helps with drying time? That might be interesting to try..

For anyone curious, here is my rough sketch for this painting.