Happy Birthday to me!

Today was my birthday and part of my present from Mr C, which included a trip to Cadbury World, was also a watercolour set.  I tried some watercolour art the other week.  My first ever go at it having never done painting or drawing of any sort since high school, and as I recalled I sucked then but without the pressures of teenagerdome and generally having an idea and painting it turns out it's really good fun.

I had a triptych of a flower that I was going to get rid of but decided to paint over the canvas and redo my own 'art.'  As I am also getting into yoga I wanted to do something to represent the serenity, relaxation, breathing and meditation.  

I quickly realised it wasn't as easy as it looked, but still fun.

I also created a little 3D canvas of leaves I collected from around the Groe and PVA glue which I called Autmnal Burst...

So with my newly gifted watercolour set I downloaded an Ebook from the Welsh Ebook service, alright I downloaded the dummies guide to watercolours, which is a great book and gave me some techniques and projects to try out.  I also learned from the book what I did wrong with my triptych including painting watercolour onto canvas (a no no) and not using enough paint or water!

First up was creating a garden of blooms.  Created by dripping either water onto colour or a heavy wet brush onto the paper.  The paper is pre wet with water before you add colour...

Then I tried out some different brush strokes...

The next technique was to draw a stripe with each colour in my palette to see what they are like.  I also  have coloured tubes in my new kit but I really liked using the cakes so stuck with them...

I also tried the techniques in the book on both wet and dry areas of a piece of paper, a la this...

So after all that, some reading, practice and general playing with my new toy I tried small project one a snowy landscape scene.  It didn't take long to do but the results are quite dramatic. I am super impressed with myself!

So that's been my day of arty crafty.  Next on the watercolour to do list is texture, the book has some ideas but I want to try using different knitting stitches printed onto the watercolours.

I also want to try a still life so now off on a hunt around the house to see what I can paint :-)