12.4.20

Spending time in the studio during this time of self-isolation I have been enjoying putting into action the word’s of Tony Smibert from his wonderful book Painting Landscapes from your Imagination. During the summer of 2016 I undertook all of the exercises in his book and some of you may have followed my progress at that time. Here is a re-post of one of them, which reminds me of how much fun I had during that memorable summer four years ago.

there are no rules

In Chapter 2 of Painting Landscapes from your Imagination Tony Smibert describes the Nature of Watercolor:

“The essence of painting in watercolour is to understand and work with the simple mysteries
of suspension, settling and drying, which takes place everytime we lay down a wash.”

He then adds perhaps the perfect mantra for watercolour painting:

“There are no rules in watercolour, only consequences”

Today’s exercises, which are full of “consequences”, some more successful than others, finishes Chapter 6 with more washes, dots, dabs and the addition of knife work to remove the dried paint creating white highlights from the underlying paper.

There are lots more great exercises to re-visit.