Using fantasy with watercolour
Many novice watercolour painters always want to paint exactly the picture they have in front of them. Either it is in nature where they have set up their easel, or it is from a photo. If there is a boat on it, we count the number of portholes because there are 38 and we only painted 28. What would the people say about such amateurism!!
The grass must be exactly that color and the different trees must also be entrusted to the paper as true to nature as possible. Fortunately, we have a palette with 48 colors and if necessary we can buy many more colors from the wide range! What arises is a cacophony of separate parts and separate colors that do not match.
Forget that you can approach nature with a color box.
Perhaps some painters can do this. (see Thierry Duval)
But he has also been working on a painting for weeks and has long since left the learning process behind. And very remarkable, his palette is still very modest. We can conclude from this that more is less!
My next example is the following. I was watching a TV program, and it was about a nature reserve nearby.
The two forest rangers stood on a kind of surfboard and paddled through the nature reserve.
And suddenly I was intrigued by a shape. Not by color or the landscape. But purely a form.
I show it here by the red line.
I don't remember whether I made a sketch of it, but this is the end result on half a sheet.
So look at shapes and use your imagination. Don't just paint what is there, but try to make it even more beautiful. Try to make a painting of it instead of an after-painted picture. Make a beautiful lie! 😁 I probably did this with 4 pigments
Edo
You are fortunate to have found him. Though I know little about art other than the art appreciation course required for my degree and fundamentals of watercolor (which didn't make sense until I took Blundell's course.....which might have been because I was easily distracted in college) 😄, however, I can see Kees's influence in your work.
I've spent a large amount of time reviewing books and articles, but real hands-on experience only started a short while ago. It's typical of life, but the month after I signed up for Blundell's course, my daughter was diagnosed with stomach cancer. She survived that just to have to go through rehab because they had her addicted to opioids. I was by her side, taking care of her and her boys for nearly 2yrs. Then Covid hit and I brought the grandsons down here to do their fully remote school for well over a year. Most people had all this extra time during Covid, but I was blessed to have plenty on my plate to keep me occupied. 😋 There is a bit of a surreal quality that conveys how excited you are by the beauty of the water, the light, and the landscape. There's a clean natural and joyous expression in your work. Da Vinci was always struggling to convey light in his paintings and the warm glow it gives off. You've captured light very well here. Maybe it's the simplicity of it all. It's kind of a haiku, suggesting just enough to draw you in and connect with you. Your mind does the rest. I bet we are both stubborn enough we wouldn't let anyone tell us we had to adopt their style. Blundell would say things like, "if you choose to take on this next challenge" and I always felt I was a secret agent accepting a top-secret mission. But it was my choice. She gave subjects and challenges to teach basic skills but didn't preach. I will say, however, if there is anyone who has an in-depth understanding of pigments (how they mix with other pigments, which options give you the greatest range of colors, now to best neutralize a color, why granulation, opacity, and transparency are important, the reasons to keep warm and cool colors on our palettes...... ANYTHING to do with watercolor pigments and mixing), Jane is an expert. She's also quite an accomplished artist in her own right. Many students had their own brands of the pigments we used in class, but Blundell included a crossover chart to help students plug in their brands to the lesson (frankly, I've not seen another artist do this to date because most artists seem to push students into using their own materials and even have links to Amazon to get a little extra revenue from those sales). I'm pleased most instructors share they get a kickback, but they also don't give alternatives. Sorry for the lengthy rambling thoughts.