A watercolour sketch from this morning. Trying very hard to work out how to use watercolour paint, which Im finding quite tricky, but I’m slowly learning that I do have to employ some patience with it. It’s going to take more playtime to find out if I can use them for sketching without making a big muddy mess

Louise Balaam - Monthly Landscape Painting

Skills

Posted on

March 30, 2025

← I enjoyed doing this. I probably spent just half an hour but didn’t know what else to do. I found the demo this week very helpful and it taught me to layer colours more densely instead of relying on blending. I also love the idea of pushing the colour further than what you see in real life. Another from the morning sketching the view down the valley. It was a good few hours exploring watercolour & finding out how I cope with it. Really fascinating finding different ways to interpret the same view at different moments. I managed to paint rather a lot of these and whiled away a good few hours playing & investigating; how wet to make the paint, wet the paper first – or not, intensity of colour, how the paint bleeds & makes a mess, and so much more. I’m thinking that watercolour will be good to take sketching, to use on its own or to add to my usual watersoluble crayons , pencils & charcoal. →

2 Comments

Louise Balaam on April 6, 2025 at 5:08 pm

I agree, nice bold strokes Karen. I think watercolour is one of the hardest mediums to use tbh because you can’t correct any mistakes. When I use it for sketching I use white gouache with it to give me some opacity. I really like the fresh way you’ve used w/c here, very direct
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Rachel O’M on April 5, 2025 at 1:42 am

I like the bold patches of color!
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