Using fantasy when you paint watercolours.

Paper: Millford 300 grams CP
Pigments: MaimeriBlue
Brushes: Princeton Aqua-Elite

Many novice watercolour painters always want to paint exactly the picture they have in front of them. Either it is in nature where they have set up their easel, or it is from a photo. If there is a boat on it, we count the number of portholes because there are 38 and we only painted 28. What would the people say about such amateurism!! The grass must be exactly that color and the different trees must also be entrusted to the paper as true to nature as possible. Fortunately, we have a palette with 48 colours and if necessary we can buy many more colours from the wide range! What arises is a cacophony of separate parts and separate colours that do not match. Forget that you can approach nature with a color box. Perhaps some painters can do this. (see Thierry Duval) But he has also been working on a painting for weeks and has long since left the learning process behind. And very remarkable, his palette is still very modest. We can conclude from this that more is less! My next example is the following. I was watching a TV program, and it was about a nature reserve nearby. The two forest rangers stood on a kind of surfboard and paddled through the nature reserve.

And suddenly I was intrigued by a shape. Not by color or the landscape. But purely a form. I show it here by the red line.

I don’t remember whether I made a sketch of it, but this is the end result on half a sheet.

So look at shapes and use your imagination. Don’t just paint what is there, but try to make it even more beautiful. Try to make a painting of it instead of an after-painted picture. Make a beautiful lie! 😁
I probably did this with 4 pigments

Edo