Catie attempts to watercolour

As part of an ongoing effort to regain creativity I have decided to take up watercolouring. I want to learn to paint from life, as well.  A portable sketchbook and portable water colour set have been ordered, but for today, I started with some old paint and paper we had hanging around the house.

Watercolouring has never been my favourite medium. At all. Acrylics or oils - you can paint over mistakes. Watercolouring? You either live with them or embrace them. And you cant work until it's perfect. You need to stop before you go too far....  and patience! You need to wait for them to dry before adding layers. Ahhhhhh!!!

So I guess the goals are to work on my creativity, learning to accept mistakes, and learning to have patience and quit while you are ahead. Pretty art would be nice too :)

Anyway- here's my first few.

A  clearing on some family property (from a photo), and my attempt from memory to paint a thunderstorm rolling in over Lake Ontario. Not satisfied with any of them - but working on my perfectionism so sharing anyways :)

I swear, I could almost hear the thunder. Impressive!  I think it was the rolling clouds that were so evocative.

A year later... A bit more detailed. I have a bad habit of over painting with watercolor, layering like with acrylics. I haven't managed to master the impressionistic style watecolours are so good for.

These are all gorgeous, Catie! Watercolour is a challenging medium.

Catie George wrote:I haven't managed to master the impressionistic style watecolours are so good for.

Perhaps not, but I think you have your own style and it's perfect.
You're very good at capturing something that I wouldn't think could be captured, I can't even find the right word...feelings of being in a place, spirit of place? It doesn't just seem like a painting of some woods, it feels like I'm there. I hope you keep creating and sharing!

Heather Sharpe wrote:These are all gorgeous, Catie! Watercolour is a challenging medium.

Catie George wrote:I haven't managed to master the impressionistic style watecolours are so good for.

Perhaps not, but I think you have your own style and it's perfect.
You're very good at capturing something that I wouldn't think could be captured, I can't even find the right word...feelings of being in a place, spirit of place? It doesn't just seem like a painting of some woods, it feels like I'm there. I hope you keep creating and sharing!

Thank you, I'm so glad you liked them!  

That's one of my favourite places on a local trail. I always find myself stopping there to breathe for a minute. I have dozens of photos of the same spot in all seasons over several years, but it's best in winter when the light slants through the trees.

It is good to show your yearly progression, because it is proof positive that what you are doing is working.  If you are a natural like Nicola Tesla you only need to do one painting to improve. If you are a stubborn cuss like Thomas Edison (and the rest of us) you need to do a thousand tries to improve.  Anyway, practice makes perfect and the art is only as good as it is before it is abandoned, so keep going!  (most folks quit between age 8-12, and die doing art like an 8-12 year old )

Catie George wrote:A year later... A bit more detailed. I have a bad habit of over painting with watercolor, layering like with acrylics. I haven't managed to master the impressionistic style watecolours are so good for.

To be honest, i haven't been painting much. I thought i'd upload this one since I'm happy with it and shows i've progressed more than i think i have.

Despite not painting much, i have been spending a lot of time just LOOKING at things.  Also, learning to spend more and more time sketching before beginning to paint, no matter how annoying i find sketching. One day, maybe i'll be able to immediately interpret swaths of colour from what i see, onto paper, but for now, sketching is really helping me SEE better.

I treated myself to some single pigment water colours this winter. Have been occasionally dabbling again and reached the point where not being able to get the darkness I wanted was my biggest annoyance while painting, with a close second - grabbing the wrong colour from a crowded palette.

Working on trying to be more "painterly" and "loose" - not overworking, and suggesting rather than feeling like I need to paint every detail, and not correcting every single tiny 'mistake' with shapes. Also playing with limited palettes.


I saw a goose standing on a hay bale while I drove today. Made me laugh, decided to paint it. First attempt was a horrible mess that took me an hour including a ton of sketching and erasing.  I am not sharing it!

Second attempt took 5 min, zero sketching, and IMO begins to achieve what I am going for.  Absolutely not to scale, but probably to scale with how big the goose thinks she is!

Paint colours : Prussian blue(PB27), English Red (PR101), Golden Yellow (PY120). Not the right blue/green combo for  the bright spring greens I wanted, but the red and blue makes a lovely, unexpected black! Would be a good fall palette.