Camelia painting finished

After a long time I finally finished a little painting of a Camelia. Due to illness I could not do much the last months. But..... there it is and I think I finally get it: how to work with watercolour paint. It was so often so frustating and such a struggle. Often my thoughts were: I give up and stays with what I can....... drawing. But I cannot stand it when I cannot do something so finally I think I found the way I like to paint.

cyclamen leaves, excercise watercolour

For my online course Botanical Art with Leonie Norton I choose the Cyclamen for my masterdrawing and painting.
My next assignment is therefor to paint two leaves of the Cyclamen, front and back.

I do not have much experience with watercolor and I am really struggling. But slowly I think I am getting somewhere and I discover what kind of technique(s) I like.

I took some photos of the leaves, not yet finished but I do not know at the moment how to proceed. So I put them away, practise a bit more and look at them again after a while to see if I can make them better and of course how to do that. It is a bit difficult because at the moment there are no cyclamen available so I only have my notes and drawings to work from.
To see if I painted the right tones I altered the painting in black and white with the help of Paint Shop Pro.

The second two photos are altered, I made the paintings darker with the help of Paint Shop Pro so I could  see what they would look like if I add more darker layers of paint. Again I changed the colours into black and white to see the tones.

watercolour paint, charts, brushes and such

Lately I have been very busy with painting watercolour charts and practising with watercolour paint.
Oh boy, how difficult working with watercolour paint is.
I already learned a lot but still....... I am struggling. I rearranged my paint boxes to make it more easy and made colour charts with the basic colours.

In one box at the first row I put the basic colours because I realise I first have to learn to paint with limited colours. I have to start at the beginning.

In the second row are colours all transparant and the third row are the opaqua colours.

In my second paintbox I put all the other colours, mostly ready mixed colours.

I think I have to get used to mix my own colours so I put these extra colours away for a while till I have more experience in mixing colours.
The watercolour paints are Winsor & Newton artists paints.

What I have learned so far?

• I must take a full load paint in my brush so I have enough liquid to be able to manipulatie the paint and to cover enough paper without I have to fill my brush in between.
• I need to use a brush that is big enough so I can cover a whole area.
• I need to hold the brush more closely to the hairs to have more controle.
• I need to mix enough paint.
• And most of all, I have to try out my mixes and paint and check it before I use it for my painting.
• I have to wait till the paint is dry before I add another layer (patience, patience!)
• Not to scribble.
• To wait till the paper is not too wet when I add a next layer.

I have cheap, less cheap, expensive, more expensive and very expensive brushes like Winsor & Newton nr.7 and Rosemary & Co brushes.
And I really can feel and experience the difference between all of them.

Last year and this year I have been saving and buying 2 beautiful sets of W&N nr 7 brushes.
I want to save them till later when I have more experience with working with watercolour paint.
But I have an extra nr. 2 W&N nr 7 brush and I use this brush to practise with. I love this brush.
Last year I bought nr 4,5 and 6 for 49.95 GBP and this year nr. 0, 1, 2 and 3 for 29.95 GBP from Ken Bromley Art Supplies in the UK
As far as I know they have the lowest prices and their shippingcosts are reasonable.

Furthermore I bought some brushes from Rosemary & Co in the UK.
Some of serie 33 and some of series 323.
They are a bit cheaper than the W&N 7 and I use them to practise and I really love these brushes, not only for practising. They are lovely to work with. These brushes have a very good reputation and they are worth the money for sure.

The cheaper brushes I use for mixing colours and for lifting out and such.

I feel very fortunate that I own  these brushes.

But now the only thing I have to do is:
"learning how to paint with watercolour:-)"

sketches of the Rododendron

In my neighbours garden there are some beautiful Rododendrons in bloom at the moment. In my own garden I have a bright red colored one, but these sketches are of some pale blue/purple flowers. Such a feast, all those colors. So I made some sketches to explore.
I promised to myself that the next couple of weeks I will concentrate on drawing and painting leaves. The next assignments for either Leonie Norton and Julie Douglas are to paint leaves. I find it so hard to paint them, so I have to practise a lot and a lot to finally succeed in painting some good leaves.

balloon flower, ink and watercolour

I had lots of fun working with ink again. First I did a drawing with ink and than I did another one and made tones with dots of ink and filled it in with watercolour.

I used Arches Hp and Indian ink with a dip pen.