Quick Paintings

 

Otter Estuary
Watercolour on Paper
16.5cm x 12cm (6.5" x 4.75")

Watercolour is a medium with personality. The inexperienced find it unpredictable. It appears to have a mind of its own - there is even a YouTube channel called The Mind of Watercolor.

While novices flounder, experts charm the paint to their will. The only way to develop and maintain this rapport is by painting a lot - something I haven't been doing for the last few years. My plan to rectify this is to paint at least a couple of quick watercolours each week. They should only take 10 minutes (ish), so I can’t use a lack of time as an excuse.

Trent Evening
Watercolour on Paper
16.5cm x 12cm (6.5" x 4.75")

My main goals are to experiment and to create interesting washes by painting everything as a single big shape - letting the colours mix on the paper. In the initial pictures, I painted everything in a single pass without waiting for things to dry. Now, I am painting the background (usually the sky) in one sitting and the major shape as a single wash in the next sitting.

East Bridgford Barns
Watercolour on Paper
12cm x 16.5cm (4.75" x 6.5")

I am pleased that I’ve painted 8 of these little pictures in the first 16 days of 2022. It is a huge increase on the amount of painting I did last year. The emphasis is on quantity, not quality, but these are my favourites.