Ohhhhh  I don’t know about this?!

I had heard that water colours are easy and so many people enjoy water colours.

But part of it involves sketching, and that’s not something I’m not the best at.

Donna (our art teacher) was explaining water colours and painting with water colours to us and said :

• can be quite expensive
• one tube is approximately $10 (ouch)
• but with water colours when the paint dries you can add water to it with the brush and continue to use it (unlike acrylics)
•  if we wanted to keep certain parts of our paper white or paint over it later then we can add masking fluid (see picture below) or use just candle wax (but you can’t paint over this once applied)
• the masking fluid is used just like paint only that when it’s dry and you have completed your work you can peel it off.  I liked using it.

Not the easiest form of media!

Oh my goodness!!!!

What can I say?!

I laughed and lightly cussed, even grunted a few times with a lot of head shaking in disbelief that I could be so so bad at this!

I found today’s class extremely challenging.

In the beginning I sketch the picture of the poppies with the pencil in my left hand (I’m right handed) because it felt right to do it that way (all whilst standing up).  So that was all good and I was feeling chipper and dandy!!

I chose the poppies not only because of the colours but also because I thought landscapes would be easier and again I wanted to try something that would challenge me and my artistic abilities…..or lack of!

So the challenge begins …..

I had absolutely no idea what I was doing or where to begin, all I knew was that my water colour painting was looking less and less like the picture and more like a kindergarten child’s water colour painting.

I kept looking at the other students in awe and envy at their artistic-ness ( I know that’s not a word but what can I say except that I felt deflated with this week’s art attempt)

I just kept laughing at myself and knew that Donna would tell me that, that was my style.  …and it was! 🙂

It was my interpretation of the picture.

Earlier in the day I was looking at some abstract paintings and drawings, thinking to myself how I like abstract art.  Not too abstract. Maybe that’s how I ended up with what I did.

I painted about 80% of the painting with my left hand. ….Interesting!!  🙂

Whilst painting this one I thought that maybe I wouldn’t like or enjoy water colours but as I progressed through to completion I thought that I would like to explore water colours further and do more abstract colourful pieces.

I must admit there was a degree of anxiety and embarrassment associated with today’s painting.  I wanted to run and hide, go back to my warm bed! ….and so did a few other students.

Suffice to say that, in the end I liked my completed piece and was rather proud of it.

What do you like about my water colour poppies?  Be kind 🙂 

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