Pen and wash (or line and wash if you prefer), is a wonderful way of combining the strength of ink with beautiful soft washes of transparent watercolour. At its best, the sum of the parts adds up to so much more than the individual elements. But the most common question for those starting out is, …
Which should I use first in line and wash – ink or watercolour? 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 …
My new courses website has only been live for a couple of weeks and it’s going great guns! I have students from the UK, Italy, Australia and France so far. What fun! cola pen in action I’ve fallen in love with dip pens over the past few weeks and my latest course shares this passion. …
I’ve been busy writing a series of articles for The Leisure Painter about watercolour portraits. After all if I can paint a cow I can paint a person. Right? The challenge is to train your hand to do what your eye wants and secondly, to learn to believe what you see. We all have so …
Exercises to stretch your portrait drawing muscles Read More »
I promised my weekly class to try and do an online lesson, and after a struggle with tech I’ve done it. In these odd times, I thought you might want to paint along too. I did a pen and wash of a colourful market, from the photo below but trying to feel I was really …
Hello, I’ve been quiet as in January I decided to do the Sktchy 30 faces in 30 days challenge. Delighted to say I managed to do it, but it took up a shed load of time. Then I have been writing my second book for Crowood Press and, also delighted to say, I delivered it …
Sorry to be so quiet but I have become addicted to Sktchy App. It has a huge collection of interesting portrait photos and a daily challenge. Sadly only available on iPad or iPhone. The only way to learn and get better is to practise over and over, so I’ve been trying to do a portrait …
If you are struggling to loosen up your work (and there is nothing wrong with tight work), try pen and wash. The pen or ink gives you the control you crave and acts as a scaffolding to hang loose watercolour washes upon. You can see a time lapse here: https://youtu.be/bEPJgnV4Tw8
Collage can be used to add texture rather than pattern or colour to your work, so I did this naive street scene to demonstrate a possibility. First I cut out shapes from mountboard and corrugated card and stuck them onto a further piece of board with PVA glue. Having let them dry, I put on …
As you may have spotted, I love watercolour. I want to see how far you can push it as a medium, so I like to explore new ways of using it. I run a weekly class, and thought that watercolour and collage would be an excellent topic to shake all my students out of any …