Hi Janflynn,

I'm a beginner and late to this conversation but I feel that sometimes mastery of watercolor painting can sound and feel hopeless. This chart you have created may be only generally informative to me, but to you it may be very helpful, especially as you become more and more consistent with your personal process. Your process would include your painting setup, technique, & environment and your climate, the micromicro-climate of your studio, how you load your brushes, how much water you tend to put down on your paper, the paints you use, and how you tend to mix them(my brand is really active and moves alot!) and how you tend to stroke or make marks on your paper. Most of us over time will tend to do things the same way as we develop our own painting process. So my point again is this: yes, there are many variables, but with practice over time, those become more predictable. This is what we should notice, why we should take notes and why we should experiment. Instead of just telling me to practice, practice practice; it helps if someone gives me specific goals and methods about how to practice. What are the specific rationales for practice? What types of practice are most effective? What techniques tend to be most successful for the majority of students? What are the specific steps I should take to develop my composition skills or what does a sucessful wash look and feel like, and how do I get there, for example. How do you know when you have mastered certain skills? What does that look like on paper or in the painting? What are the techniques for fulling loading the brush for example? How to evaluate my own work?

Here's what I find with most creatives ...it's not always easy to teach someone else how to do what you do, and even then your process may not work for others. Still, as an educator myself, I know that specific methodologies can be taught. Finding that rare teacher who can effectively communicate how to manage to create a successful watercolor painting is a true gift and why I feel Olly has given us so much with his tutorials and book. I also realize that there exists with all artists some resistance to teaching others to do what you do. After all, if anyone can do it, then in someways teaching art is continually creating more competition. Again, another reason fo thank Olly for his generosity and the time and effort he has given to creating all of this for us. At any rate, you have ispired me to try this with my own paint, paper, process in my climate, just to see if ut may be somewhat useful, so thank you.