I’ve been making use of some watercolour based birthday gifts, and thought I’d give a location from this year’s holiday a go. I love the original photo but still lack the skill to try and capture it in pure watercolour, so gave line and wash a go. My intention was to try and use techniques that would be manageable outdoors, so to avoid wet In wet and multiple washes.

There are still so many things where I don’t know what I’m doing. How to suggest water for one (it was an overcast day with the reflected clouds making the water look very grey). And how to handle edges (eg, between water and grass, or shoreline, or foreground plants). Should I be leaving the white of the paper or is there a better way to handle it?

Lastly, if I don’t put the effort in to measure the reference photo, my proportions are way off. It probably doesn’t matter if you never see the reference, (could I pass it off as a beautiful lie??) so how important is drawing ability, can you get by with average drawing ability in the long run?

All hints, comments, suggestions for improvement welcome!