Roses are such a lovely subject to paint but I know many watercolourists shy away from them because of their complexity, so I have decided to offer an exciting workshop at the end of November.
I want to keep the techniques fairly loose and suggestive, we are going to work in controlled sections of wet int wet, encouraging the paint to move and run. Encourage!! you might be thinking, it needs no encouragement.... but remember, watercolour only goes where you invite it to go, so we will be doing quite a bit of 'inviting'!
This example (above) I painted on Saunders Waterford 'not' surface watercolour paper, it absorbs the paint, making the results rich and sumptuous, lovely to work on, but not very forgiving, so for the workshop, we will work on Bockingford 'not' surface paper.
Bockingford is a wood pulp paper, made at the same St Cuthbert's paper mill its just different from a cotton paper.
This next example is painted on Bockingford paper and is the composition I plan to use during the workshop.
We will be working on a number of studies before painting our final picture, and the beauty of using this paper is that you can remove paint, and adjust things easier than using a cotton paper.
This gives you an idea of how I might build up a painting, but the whole idea of this workshop is to show participants lots of techniques which are suitable for the various sections, then each person chooses how they paint their own painting. Working with watercolour is all about reacting to what is happening on the paper, we can encourage the paint to do certain things but we do need to react to what actually happens on the paper.
I know its going to be a fun day. If you fancy joining me this is how you can book a place on the workshop.
I plan to paint some sunflowers next week using these lovely loose techniques, this year my diary is very busy but look out for that workshop next year!
