Some Older Artwork

Painting in watercolor is like walking a tight-rope; one must find perfect balance between what the paint wants to do and what the artist wants to do, or all is lost.
Mary C. Taylor

Below are three paintings of mine from at least two decades ago, maybe longer, when I tried my hand at watercolour. When I first began to paint I went to a couple of adult education classes where the procedure was to begin with drawing in graphite, progressing to colour pencil and then painting in a medium of one’s choice. With few exceptions most people choose watercolour. I cannot understand why as it is a very difficult medium, particularly for the beginner. Likewise though I followed suit until eventually trying and sticking with acrylic.

Here are some of these first watercolour paintings

Glastonbury Tor in the mist with poppies

 

Boat at sunset

 

Stone house Yorkshire dales

I think with art it takes a while to find the medium most suited to you, what you wish to achieve and the style you wish to paint. Although I long to be the watercolourist using soft delicate washes with less emphasis on detail, I am drawn to detail and find it difficult to paint without adding it, so for me the best choice of medium is acrylic, though I know many water colour artists add detail it was something I could not accomplish without making too many mistakes. Acrylic has the added bonus of being easy to correct mistakes by simply painting over them, a real boom for the inexperienced artist.

I just thought as I was about to publish this post the Boat at Sunset may actually be painted in Gouache which is similar to watercolour but is opaque. It is not easy to recall precisely after so many years. I have tried just about every medium except some of the newer innovations, there is these days just so much choice to experiment with.