Back from watercolour world!

Just back from my watercolour painting holiday in Dorset; back to all the mundane stuff like washing, ironing, cooking! I had a fabulous time, great hotel, great food, great group of people (just 10 in the group), perfect weather - that just leaves the painting bit .....

I have never tried to properly sketch stuff, certainly never in the open air; never tried painting from real life, nor used watercolours before!  It was so frustrating for me to begin with - wet in wet, wet in dry, hard edges, soft edges, tonal values, colour mixing - aarrrgghhhh!  tooooo much to take in. The added problem? - the weather was so fantastic everything dried too fast - oh dear - a cloudy day would have been kinder to me!

The tutor's style is very loose, so no point at looking for detail. He made it look so easy too!  I didn't finish any of my pictures, but, for the record, here are some of my efforts! If you stand back and squint a bit, they don't look too bad!

This monotone was done in the studio from a photograph, exploring tonal values.  Not finished, still needs some dark tones.

As I had such trouble coping with both mixing colours and tonal values, I stayed with monotone for a couple of days.

This was on the beach at Henghisbury Head, looking at a pile of rocks with the sea behind, and a distant headland.

The wind blew my palette, brushes and water onto the sand, and as everything got very sandy I called it a day, so unfinished!

This is a photo taken across the water from Mudeford Quay .....

..... it was such a challenge on the colour mixing front, that I was very slow, so this only has the initial wash, and some medium tones.  I ran out of time on the darker ones!

This is Highcliffe Castle, the home of the original Selfridge family - a stunning place.

The sketching part took so long, I didn't even get colour over the whole page!













Painting outside means that people come up to you to see what you are doing!  I met some lovely people who all liked what I was doing - thank you kind people for being very diplomatic!!!!!

I've learnt enough technique to continue with watercolour at home, and I took loads of photos to practice with, though I don't think landscape is my thing!

This was the first painting holiday I've been on, and I would do another one - maybe learning to sketch, as I do need some guidance on that too!