Why not join me on Monday 12 July at 2pm BST for an hour or so live on YouTube to learn about different watercolour techniques and how to put them together to capture a horse portrait? This is my first YouTube live, so it would be great if you fancied joining me… Starting at 2pm …
Masterclass – free on YouTube 12 July – plus discount for online courses Read More »
Masking tape is jolly useful stuff, but the big down side is that it may well rip your paper, as you remove it at the end. Needless to say, this is incredibly annoying! Let me share a few tips to avoid this fate. First of all – why use masking tape? Not only does it …
How to use masking tape without ripping your watercolour paper – 6 top tips! Read More »
The sun is shining and your thoughts turn to painting outdoors or maybe a spot of urban sketching, but by the time you get all your supplies together you have given up. Wouldn’t it be great to have a mini watercolour pocket set with all the essentials? Of course you can buy commercial pocket watercolour …
Have you ever painted a wash and found that it looks a bit blotchy and granular? That is the phenomena of granulation – loved and hated in possibly equal measures by watercolourists. I am a big fan, as I think it adds interesting marks and textures which are unachievable in any other way. Granulating paints …
What is granulation in watercolour? Why does it happen? Read More »
Watercolour ground is the magic potion which allows you to paint in watercolour on lots of things, rather than traditional paper. It’s what I use on canvas and usually, it is an opaque white absorbent gesso-like substance. Sure, it doesn’t make other surfaces quite like a beautiful rag paper, but it makes it absorbent enough …
This blog post first appeared as a guest piece on the Ken Bromley blog (https://www.artsupplies.co.uk/blog/how-to-price-your-art/), but I thought you might find it useful. Let’s be honest, pricing can be really tricky! Pricing artwork can make even a seasoned artist quake. To be honest, I am still not convinced I have it right. Perhaps the balance …
Perspective is a way of representing three-dimensional objects on a two-dimensional surface. The aim is to give the right impression of their height, width, depth, and position in relation to each other. Of course you can deliberately distort perspective to make your work appear naïve or quirky. You can also use four or five point …
I love Tombow dual brush pens for urban sketching or nature sketching, but they are REALLY expensive. So when I spotted that WHSmith do a dual brush pen, I wondered if they would be any good. They are half the price, but are they half the quality? Two artists I really admire, Ian Fennelly and …
I belong to a watercolour group on Facebook called Watercolour Techniques and Tips (https://www.facebook.com/groups/1726005714353976). Someone asked about the best watercolour advice they’d ever been given and it resulted in a long and varied discussion. I laughed, as I reckon I’ve said every single one of the phrases. So, for a bit of fun, here they …
Painting watercolour on canvas is really liberating. For all sorts of reasons… From the lack of framing, to the freedom to paint large, to the way the colour flows across the surface, to the way that you can correct mistakes…. But canvases are expensive if it all goes wrong. So is it true that you …