Beginning watercolour

 

Having realised that James' watercolour classes were too advanced for me, I signed up for a four-week  Introduction to Watercolour at the Settlement. 

The first class focussed on mixing primary colours to create more shades. The first colour-combination was red and yellow. After we'd all experimented for a while, and most people had covered their paper, we set them out on one of the tables. 

The thing that struck me, immediately, was that, not only had everyone else covered their paper, they'd painted rectangles, just like the colour charts that come with paint sets.

The same thing happened with red and blue. I was concentrating so hard to make the purple shade of my winter wool coat, that the tutor, Kate, gave me a brighter shade of blue to help with the quest. 

All my shades were even more splodge-like, rather than rectangles, and there were far fewer splodges than other people's rectangles.

I decided that the other class members had probably done this before. The man working across the table from me even had his rows organised like paint charts in DIY stores. I asked him if he was an engineer and he replied 'no, a builder.' It was then that I recognised him as the builder who had converted the garage into Eamonn's study, and the side passage between house and garage into a wet room and utility room, in 1984. Robin remembered Eamonn, the Headmaster, who had subsequently hired him to do some building work at QE. Small world.

After tea break, we were given leaves to paint. My first attempt was going well until Kate recommended adding a certain shade. I then 'overworked it'. With 15 minutes left, she gave me a small red leaf. The quick work on that is much more pleasing, in my opinion.

I've been practicing with leaves over the past two days. I think these are not bad.

Watercolour is much harder than working with acrylics. Once a colour is dry, it is very difficult to change things.