watercolourist wannabe

my watercolour classes have ended for the term. It took so much discipline to wake up at 8am every saturday morning to attend class.

we painted in the historic MacEwan House. I am compeltely ignorant of the history of the house but I love it nonetheless. It has an airy studio with wooden floors, a fireplace and an abundance of windows. the house is in Riverwood, a Mississauga park which I also love because the name alone is able to stimulate the imagination and remind of me Robin Hood's band of thieves.



during class, the instructor, a Bonnie something-or-another, would give a couple of demos but the majority of class time would be used for painting. the subject matter, being primarily landscapes, were provided by Bonnie in photograph form. I was the youngest in a class of ten; there was at least a twenty year age gap between me and the next youngest person. The age difference didn't propose a problem but sometimes they would discuss Rod Stewart and Barbara Streidsand and other people I know little of. The would often speak of how irresponsible and difficult their children were- the children were all my age. there was this incredibly annoying lady who I couldn't stand. she never stopped asking questions, all of which weren't very smart ones. listening to her excessive questioning was extremely frustrating.

during the nine lessons (one skipped Saturday due to mistaking mum's wakeup call as a dream), I produced these:

Notes to self:
- obviously incomplete, can't even continue because photograph is lost
- I like the sky
- barn: missed the class where the dry brush technique was taught, unsure of how to give the barn the proper texture, unsure of how to paint
the cast shadows, shouldn't of painted the shadowed side of barn before painting
the front of the barn, shadowed side of barn may be completely wrong value
- foreground: completely oblivious of how to do it
- need to take off masking fluid because it's too lates

- background: correct value, like the complimentary purple and yellow

- foreground: correct values, like the intensity of colours, used bleeding technique properly, may have overpainted the negatives in the grasses

- rocks: done with a scraping technique, wrong colour and value because I had left the paint to dry too much before scraping

- birch tree: incomplete, needs green leaves to balance picture, leaves were sponged on

- house: incomplete, unsure of how to do the cast shadows

-water: first couple of washes were well done, like the reflection but ruined the waves because of a slip of hand

Arches paper does do wonders. It doesn't curl during washes.

Though I'm not producing masterpieces yet, I have improved significantly. Not intending to boast, my paintings are usually the best in class; my design and composition, technique and colour choices are superior to others. The intermediate students often refer to my pieces as examples and ask me for advice. The instructor says I have "a beautiful touch" and "an eye for beautiful things".

I paint better when the instructor is around. I use her paintings as references and often wait for her to prompt the next step. I am going to try to paint as much as possible this Christmas holiday, hoping to wean myself off my instructor and become more independent. however, I wish I had a watercolour book (*hint hint*) to help with colour theory and techniques.

I am to continue with classes which starts mid-January.