Watercolour river studies…continuing my sketchbook journey.

Its important to me that I endeavour to capture outdoor holiday moments in my visual diary. So right now I am experimenting with tiny watercolour studies with mixed results…and that’s okay.

My learnings:

• Make a few notans of your photo image to start with, it allows you to really see your large shapes, direction of movement and point of interest
• It’s important to lightly sketch large shapes and placement of key subjects as accurately as possible
• Apply masking fluid carefully to those areas you wish to leave white and work on later
• Maintain those precious lights and whites of the paper
• Dont be afraid to make dark areas dark (don’t use black it deadens your work)
• Contrast is important
• Use a limited palette to start, I mainly used three watercolours plus white gouache:
  • French Ultramarine
  • Rose Madder
  • Gamboge Yellow

I’m not a watercolourist but I do enjoy sketching with watercolour, gouache, pen and ink.