5 ways to get into watercolour painting

Watercolour is, so I am told the most difficult of all the paints to master. I used to think they were wrong, it had to be acrylic which dries so much faster and always felt far more unforgiving than watercolour. Recently I have been experimenting with watercolours for my artist book in painting and even mixing my watercolours with my other major which is printmaking. Though my obsession with watercolours is visible with the blogs design, Clara and I both like watercolours but I think I might be the more hardcore fan of it (Can one be hardcore about watercolour?).

Birthday present for bestie, testing watercolour illustration

Whilst I am far from an expert, I realise that in the two extremes of art mediums for painting that we do at Varsity I find calm in oil painting and extreme creativity in watercolours. I think I am more willing to experiment with different looks and feels in art when using the humble watercolour and paper as opposed to the hardcore dedication of the oils. This said, I love movies and BBC Historic Dramas about the Austen period where women paint utterly beautifully dainty watercolours and not being good at watercolours as apposed to cooking made you less of a woman. Seriously it is delightfully funny in a purely feminist way of oh how upper middle classes and the upper class where at that time. I don't remember ever reading these statements in an Austen Novel but I could have missed it.

Linoprint on watercoloured paper with hand stitched border

Through a lot of research (okay I mean a lot of Pinterest), I have been seeing some utterly amazing watercolour paintings and wonderful techniques on how to get started. I thought I would share the top 5 tutorials of how to get started and basic equipment.

5 ways to get into watercolour Painting:

1. The Alison Show has well written beginner tutorials on watercolour, go check it here
2. This seems to be a printable with some basics that are useful. 
3. How to do calligraphy with watercolours.
4. Mixing watercolours, a pretty and useful tutorial 
5. For pure inspiration of modern watercolour work

Playing with clay

During my first year at University both Fine Arts and Textile Design students did the same foundation year that combined subjects from both courses. In the student’s second year of study they could choose either to major in Fine Arts or in Textile Design. The readers know already that I chose Textiles and never looked back, nor regretted my decision.  During this foundation year I was introduced to the joys of pottery and working with clay.

Clay was something that children played with, according to me and wheel throwing for some reason was something that did not really capture my attention. That is until I started playing with clay as an adult and actually had to work on the wheel in order to pass the subject. For the next four years I did not really pay much attention to this desire that I had to do pottery again and continued my studies as usual.

At the end of 2013 I decided to do a second take and go for some classes and learn a bit more about pottery. In March 2014 my mother joined me at our first class at Rhoda Henning’s Pottery Studio in Brooklyn, Pretoria.  These classes have become many things; a weekly break from reality, some bonding time with my mother, social interaction (which I sometimes forget to do) and an extremely exciting hobby.

Like dyeing, the outcome of your pottery is always a surprise due to how unpredictable and stubborn clay can be, the high temperatures clay is fired at and the fact that any paints or glazes applied to the object only develop their true colours once it has been fired for a second time. It took a lot of convincing before mommy dearest believed that the pink paint she is using will turn blue during its second firing.

Pottery is another hobby that I would recommend everybody try during their lifetime. This may not be suitable if one is impatient as the process takes quite a bit of time and if one does not like to get your hands dirty. When working on the wheel many are cover up to their eyebrows in clay. Nonetheless it satisfies the need to create, paint and make functional as well as ornamental artworks.

Go forth and play!

Peace and love

Clara