Watercolor First Efforts

In looking at various painting demos and tutorials on YouTube, I stumbled across a watercolor artist named Peter Sheeler who does a lot of straightforward but very evocative "line and wash" watercolors of landscapes, lighthouses, farms and similar rustic subjects.

For a first attempt, I pulled out an old set of watercolors that had been in a drawer in the kids area of the basement for a few years, and tried to follow along with a simple country road scene. I'd have to say I was very pleased with the result. Watercolors are very different from the recent oil and acrylic paintings I have tried, and it took some getting used to how to mix the colors, how much water to use, how things blended on the paper, etc... These are both 6" by 9" paintings on cheap Artist's Loft basic watercolor paper.

Country Road (after Peter Sheeler)

My second attempt was a little more ambitious, and included a house, lighthouse, water and an evening sky. This was painted on the same paper as the first, but with a much better quality assortment of Turner Concentrated Artists watercolors mail ordered from Jerry's Artarama. Normally I would just drive the half hour to the Jerry's store in Newark Delaware, but....

I am pleased with the result here as well, but there are some things that I messed up that nag at me. I need to maintain reasonable expectations and just keep practicing without getting discouraged. As noted with the oil and acrylics, I have a better eye than I have skill at this point.

Key lessons here include the ordering of putting down certain colors. Sky becomes a green mess if you let your yellows run into your blues (which fortunately could be somewhat fixed by adding some magenta into that area once completely dry). Build shadows carefully. And perhaps most importantly, once a given area of the painting has begun to set, don't go back and fiddle with it, or you will end up pulling the wet paint out of the middle of an area and leaving a ring of dried paint around the edge. I really messed up the shadows in the water to the left by doing this, but managed to fix the worst of it by going back and evening out the colors after everything had completely dried.

Lighthouse (after Peter Sheeler)

I still have a lot to learn, but this was a lot of fun. It was also the most accessible in terms of being able to start painting with only a few minutes of set up, and can be done at my desk, the kitchen table, the island, or really anywhere. Required table space is tiny. All of which makes it perfect for those times when you have a little bit of time, but not enough to get into something more involved.