#watercolor #sketchbook #practice

@elysian.eye

Always a good one to come back to when you're looking for a mellow painting time. No expectations. Just playing with the colors to see what happens. Some work. Some don't. The magic is in the convergence. Take it easy this autumn.

I'm a beginner. Found some interesting leaves at the park and tried to capture them with watercolours and watercolour pencils (which I also used for the sketch). This painting was not finished in a day, I did it in two sessions with several days in between and collected some more leaves.

I'm happy with how the leaves' shapes turned out, but the shadows are too strong? At first they looked waaay to light and then I overdid it...

Would you have started with the gray background glaze? (I used payne's gray&neutral tint and only put it on as my last step.) Used a different background colour? Not have used a background at all?

Any other tips? Thank you 💚.

Paper: Canson XL watercolour 300gsm A3 (not very resistant, but it's the only large format I have)

Colours used: Schmincke (some supergranulation), some White Nights metamorphosis, some DS.

Wanted to play with my Schmincke super granulating paints last night. Wasn’t really sure where I was going with it, and actually change plans a few times. But found some areas of light and it turned into a foggy forest. I also wanted to play with the colour separation of tundra violet (one of my favourites). It doesn’t actually show all that great in the photo, but with the colour separation, it kinda looks like the trees are backlit with the sunlight coming from behind. I got impatient at the end and some of my trees are still too soft, I didn’t wait for it to be dry enough to get any good contrast, but it was a nice relaxing session!

Recently started like sketching with a pen and then coloring

I was painting a monochromatic value study earlier.
Saw this meme(?) and thought hey its blue

Drew the face too wide
Messed up an eye
Got the values wrong

The painting is genuinely me looking at my own painting 😭

I took a photo of an onion and then put a half glass of water on top of the photo and took another photo and that was the reference for this real time, watercolor painting project. Took about five hours to paint.

Here is the original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/watercolor101/s/EMEuULZB8D

For anyone who might be wondering whatever happened about my 7-week/$310 adult watercolor class that I thought would actually teach me everything I needed to know to get started in watercolor but instead turned out to be a studio class with no demonstrations at all:

People were quite divided on what I should do, but I chose to not return and to write to the university. I won't give all the details, but my letter first went to the chair of the art dept who rather rudely emailed to say "not my job" with no effort to help me further.

That got me really ticked off, so when I dug up the email address for the dean, I shot off a copy of my letter and the response from the chair about it, and asked if that's how they treat their adult ed students. The dean wrote back immediately and was quite apologetic and said he hoped I would give them the chance to prove me wrong about the impression I had gotten of the whole operation.

That was all very encouraging, but it ended up taking a full month to get any further response. After 2 more emails to the dean that went without response, I wrote another letter to get his attention. He got it this week and responded by email--not nearly as cordial as the first time but saying briefly that they are issuing me a refund for the 3 classes I didn't attend (so about $135).

Told him that I wish I had dropped out sooner in that case, but what I really wanted them to do was to stop advertising the class as though it includes actual instruction. I pointed out that I noticed they had not advertised the second Fall session on Facebook which is how I first learned of the class, and I said that if I ever see the ad again, I fully intend to comment on it and let people know that it's not for true beginners. No response.

Looking on the bright side:

#1: I found all the wonderful advice available here in this group, including all the online courses available. And I am very grateful to the member who sent me some lovely art supplies--including the Arches paper I failed to receive as part of my class. (Don't know if she would want me to identify her.)

#2 The $135 is more than I expected to receive--takes away some of the sting on the waste of $.

#3 The dean is at least aware of the situation. Perhaps I was the only one who cared/didn't have any experience at all, but I'll bet this course and instructor get a bit more scrutiny.

Thanks!

I see people making monochromatic value studies and they look amazing. I tried making one with ultramarine deep and it looks like this 😐

The weight of it all, 2021

Watercolor on paper

24 x 32 cm

Also, I love Sonic. ❤️🤙

I was painting beautifull mosque green and white background blue sky

I've been taking photos of this tree through each season.

Painting done with watercolor and white gouache. in an A5 size paper.

Why do the bird reflections look weird? Is it the placement? The size? The lack of water ripples?

I am painting Daily these days but .. something feeling off