This summer I have been doing plein air sessions along the "North Shore" (of Boston) with a small group. I decided to challenge myself to use only 2 pigments (French Ultramarine and Burnt Sienna) for each scene. By using a warm and a cool pigment, I was able to explore temperature differences related to depth and the composition is clearer to me than with multi-pigment versions. These are the first four in the series.
I started to sketch outside again since more than one year! I was a little rusted but this one took me less thand an hour. The contrasts are crap, but a photo has been taken and aother version will come on a larger sheet that this small sketch-book.
I applaud you for getting out there and sketching. I have been participating in a Plein Air group during July and will post some of my work soon. I often just do a rough sketch in he field which is used to inspire a more finished work later.
Ryckevelde castle near Bruges 18/28 cm - Arches cold press 300 gr - Winsor and Newton -
Nice work Peter, especially love the castle reflection and also the tree reflections on the right hand side bank.
I like the crisp precision of the bridge against the otherwise loose landscape. And Cartwright is a brilliant artist! Long educational videos. -Generous.
some Koh Samui memories
A retry of an painting of Mont Saint-Michel. If I may say so, I’m quite pleased with the result. I tried a more loose approach using a large hake brush for the sky and the water. I also think the overall tonality worked out quite well.
Brushstrokes 2026-0611
Sognefjord, Balestrand, Norway
Watercolor 10" x 7"
I attended graduate school in Utah, and lived there for 18 years working for Sinclair Oil. I also served as Chairman of the Governing Board of the Utah Geological Survey, appointed by the Governor. I traveled all over the state in that capacity and as a result, I have a great love for the beautiful landscapes of Utah.
Personal reference photo
A couple of nights ago we had the most amazing northern light. (Aurora Borealis) I thought I could try painting this. The difficulty is that since we have no snow left the ground is almost pitchblack at night. Of course I could make it a snowscene, but I wanted to try without.
2 attempts were made.
Tell me if you find it believable that it is actually night?
First one. But the sky is wrong here..
Love these Seija, indeed the second is more real.
I think your wash was there more liquid.
The board on an angle, and using gravity on a wet surface, pigments can make awesome effects.
But find out some yellow and blue pigments in a mix spread better.
Arne Issacsons knowledge.
Spreaders, collectors and biters.
https://edohannemawatercolourartist.wordpress.com/arne-isacsson/
The reference photo was taken in 1999, in Budapest's beautiful island called "Margit sziget". It's a very dear photo to me, when the children were 9-9-5 years old.
It certainly has mistakes, but I still like it, for now. Maybe I'll give another go!
Lovely painting. I enjoy adding children/grandchildren to my landscapes and have nearly finished another like that. The painting then tells a story
Hi all,
This is my first post, I've been reading and looking at all the lovely watercolours here for sometime and decided I needed some advice if anyone has the time. I have been a watercolourist for about 2.5 years now, love painting landscapes and seascapes. I'm hoping to get some advice please.
I struggle after my first wash, I can make my decisions regarding colour, placement etc, but then get stuck, resulting in just bits of different greens, and not much shape to anything I feel. I get lost again on my next washes adding detail as I don't class myself as very good at drawing, I understand I must practise.
Love the book and the website, I also am a patreon member, which I love, thankyou to Olly and Edo and all involved for the opportunity to improve my landscape watercolours.
Monica Hazlewood
Welcome!! I think you painted a great sky, then connected that beautifully by reflecting it in the lake. The only real mistake I can see is the small lonely tree way down in the left corner. Be bolder! Move it diagonnally up just a bit to maybe connect with the distant land? I too struggle with connections. But you seem to have a feeling for it judging by sky/lake!
Brushstrokes 2026-0311
Central Utah, USA 🇺🇸
Watercolor 20” x 10”
3 color combo + 2: 1 ratio of painting.
Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Sienna & Yellow Ochre.
Love it! The horizontality of the fields (and the aspect ratio) capture the open expanse, while the mountains behind give a great contrast to it. The drybrush is used to great effect!
This is the church I will past by each time taking my kids to school. I love how the sun hits the tower (sorry don't know what the actual phrase is)
But I captured this scene on Sunday morning. As you can see, no traffic. Sketch on location and paint this at home.
It is "Road to school" in this post because I pushed myself to finish this -- because I miss counted the paintings need for my local art exhibition. The painting got bought almost right the way.
The bitter sweet of letting your art go, especially the one you just finished and haven't had time to "really connect" put me in a cross path suddenly. But I recalled why I painted and selling my work. I believe everyone can afford art pieces and can create art. The sharing is the caring I have for my community here. I…
This is lovely, painted with skill and beautiful colours. If others can enjoy our art then our time is well spent.
Second attempt equally dull. I will leave this for a while.
The line and wash is a sloppy drawing that turned out more interesting. I know that it is not correct in perspective. So by purpose, because knowing myself -I will easily become a bit fanatic with linework. This is loose and relaxed with the block on my right side while drawing in ink instead of infront of me. It is from a holiday in 2016. I don't remember the name of the ruins. We saw so many.
I like ink and wash at brings back quickly so many good memories. in a series of little sketch books Yours is indeed the Library of Celsus at Ephesus which we visited some years ago
In the 90ties, a VHS video with painting videos was released for the first time in the Netherlands. A quarterly art magazine publisher bought them abroad. and you could order or pick them up there. Very expensive by the way. I paid 92 guilders for 1 video. Now it's normal but thirty years ago it really wasn't. I was on night shift that week and couldn't get there until Friday morning. because the publishing house was closed on the weekend! I Worked all week at night and Friday morning at 7 o'clock at home. The store didn't open until 9am. and it was 25 km away. I drove to Alkmaar at 8 o'clock and picked out a video. Ray Campbell Smith Watercolors.
I was home at 10 am. and began to watch the video.
His calming voice about watercolour made me even more sleepy than I was already and fell…
I think its like everything else; everyone has a different approach. Bach started music by copying out the manuscripts of others; some of his very early work was derivative. Really, on some ways, its not so much an approach, so much as a function of how far you go. In the beginning, you copy others (whether that's learning the alphabet or gardening or whatever). But as you gain experience, and confidence, you start to want to do things differently. In some ways, I think that art and music has become too much an exercise in being different for being different's sake. Bach didnt want to different, he wanted to master existing forms. And that's what he did. He copied the French style, and the German style, and the English style, and the Italian style.. he transcribed works by others... his work followed the rules of counterpoint, and he used the circleof fifths, and so on and so on. But by doing this, this sheer volume of work, the "tips and tricks" became second nature and he was now able to use the language of music easily, and from that, he became what he became. "If anyone puts in the work that I did, they can become as good". Copying the works of others isnt the goal, but its a first step in learning "how did they do that"? If you can copy works by several different artists, you learn by doing, how this or that effect was achieved. If you keep doing this, then when you meet a subject that catches your attention, you have a stab at capturing it on paper. This is the technical aspect of learning. Yes, you wont be a famous artist if you stop there. That is true. But some people are happy stopping there, and if that is what gives them joy in life, why not? To some, just being able to copy in a way that looks decent, not childish, it's an achievement! That's school level. The next level is the university level, when you learn not to copy, but to create. To write your own thesis, not regurgitate lessons. Not everyone will get there. Not everyone wants to get there.
But this is the level you are talking about. Where you stop learning and start DOING. At this stage, you can stop following all the "rules" - no gouache, use proper sketches with perspective, tight painting, loose painting, representative painting or abstract painting - I saw some Van Gogh watercolors recently from his period at a coal mine. They were dreadful. Like a child. I think its when he "gave up" and started painting just to amuse himself, that he finally became a great painter. His houses and chairs arent exercises in perspective any more, they are disproportioned and garishly colored. His "Starry Night" looks nothing like an actual starry night. But its better nonetheless. Far, far better. Ultimately, what should matter to every artist, is not being able to copy, nor being able to follow compositional "rules", or "color harmony" or perspective, or anything else - its being able to be inspired by a scene in some way, and being able to get that down on paper. Technical skill gets you only so far, and yes, copying can give you this technical skill, which is why people copy art that inspires them, to "learn from the masters". But that's learning HOW. The second part is the WHY. To be in a cherryblossom snowstorm with the spring sunshine bright, or to be in a still and silent winter wonderland, or to be in a hot and dry dusty desert town with the harsh sun bearing down - these are feelings to be captured. And this is the tricky part for most amateur artists - how to go beyond technique to capture these ephemeral feelings and moods. Yes, it helps to be out on location to get this feeling, but its not required. Sometimes a photo can remind you of an experience you had in the past, and you can use the photo as a catalyst for trying to capture that remembered feeling. Do you need to follow compositional rules? No. Following rules can dry the inspiration from the brush. Sure, if you want to be a professional artist selling paintings, you should paint what sells. But to me, right now, I'm more focused on how to capture reflected light, or sparkle on water, or hot summer shadows. So that's what I'm painting.When I become a master of the effects I want to achieve, sure, then I can follow compositional rules. Although personally I prefer to find a scene I like and paint that, rather than move trees and buildings around to aid the composition. The way you copied that river scene above from what was in front of you. So what I'm saying is that everyone is at their own level in the journey, and some will get so far, and others will go farther.
The main benefit of others art, as far as I'm concerned, is to find out what you yourself personally like. I like some things in some people's art, and other things in other people's art. Decades ago, I was hugely into David Bellamy's watercolors, and I still think they are exceptional. But I no longer want to create art like that. I find it too detailed in places, I find the composition a little forced in places, a lot of little things, it's just not what I find inspiring to me as a goal anymore. So art's a journey, and yes, a lot of that journey is getting distracted by one painter or another. Maybe you read a book that was heavy on composition that has influenced you, or a book on color harmony, or whatever.. maybe if there's a big tree here, you need a little tree there to balance it. Whatever. The point is that this is all a stage on each persons unique journey, and everyone will end up somewhere else if they start on that journey and continue. Here are my main suggestions (often I dont follow them myself) (1) Learn techniques to achieve effects that you admire, by trying to copy that effect. Copying a painting is nothing, copying an effect you like is everything. And if that means copying the painting, to feel like you've completed something, so be it. (2) Get out in nature, or into your mind's eye, and find something that inspires you. Then try to replicate the feeling in a painting. (3) Keep doing this. The more you do it, the better you get. (4) Look at your own paintings, see where you got things right. Analyze your mistakes and your successes - why did it work? why did it not work? And that's pretty much it. Then read books, watch videos of others, take what you like, leave the rest. Dont feel the need to replicate others in your final artworks. Replicate what's in your own head. So its not copy or dont copy - its copy as an exercise, but aim to get what's inside your own head - even if you cant see it yet!
For years I thought there was only one way to make a good watercolour: follow the “rules” and try to copy what I admired. But at some point I realised that watercolour opens up when you allow more options — more approaches, more risks, more personal decisions.
A limited palette can give endless colour. A big brush can say more than ten small ones. A mistake can become atmosphere.
The more I paint, the more I see that watercolour isn’t about control — it’s about choices.
Really nice sketches/watercolours with just two pigments. Always good to create something before you get to the serious watercolours. Saves valuable paper!