How to stay motivated…
The following is a holiday gift to my students (current and prospective)
We all know the little voice in our head that pops up when holidays provide a break in our usual creative routine.
“I really should paint, but I have so many other things I need to do.”
“It is a pain to take all of supplies out…. I’ll do it a little later.”
“I don’t have enough time to start a serious painting.”
Or
“I don’t know what I want to paint.”
“I have to search for the perfect subject to work from.”
The best way to hone your watercolor skills and keep the creative pump primed is to do watercolor calisthenics.
The secret to improving your watercolor skills is not to expect to create a masterpiece every time you sit down to paint. When you are working on a piece you really care about, you often care too much about the outcome to listen to what the pigment, water, paper, and brushes have to teach you.
Break it up into bite size morsels
Instead of trying to clear off a couple of hours or an entire afternoon to paint, commit yourself to more frequent session of 5, 10 or 15 minutes.
And here are some ideas:
First of all, an organizational tip:
Keep your supplies where they are easy to reach. If you don’t have a dedicated space to paint, try putting all of your supplies on a small cart or trolley rather than packing them away. If they are easier to access you are more likely easier to use them. Keep a stack of small practice paper (8” X 10” or so) available. Rather than painting on poor quality paper, use the back of less successful paintings; the quality of the paper affects the actual behavior of the pigment and water.
But here is the caveat: Just reading about these exercises or watching someone else do them won’t improve YOUR skills. The secret of learning from them is in the DOING.
Ten tidbits
Do a page of brush strokes. Explore all the kinds of marks your brush makes.
Practice mixing colors right on the paper. Each of the following can be done as a stand-alone activity. See how many neutrals you can make; how many greens, purples, oranges, etc.)
Divide a page into four quarters and do some imaginary landscapes, or galaxies. Doodle with paint… don’t worry about the outcome
Practice wet-on-wet by dropping colors onto a surface that you have wet thoroughly and let dry slightly.
Play with water…. How much water do you need to make colors mingle?
Pick one object (a scissors, a tube of paint, etc.) and paint it quickly in four different ways. Zoom in on it; put it on the edge of the page; turn it; paint it abstractly. Once you’re fired up, do it four more times in four different ways.
Pick something simple on your work surface (a jar of brushes, a collection of supplies) and draw it with a brush (no pencil first) as a contour line drawing lifting the brush only to load it with more pigment.
Make little gift tags for your holiday presents… by making 10 or more little 2” X 2” paintings of the same design—a tree, a dreidel, a flower. Don’t worry about how “good” they are.
Take a less-than-successful painting from your pile and find the 2” X 2” gems within it. Cut them out and use them as gift cards.
Take an old painting and experiment with it: cut it into strips and collage it together or use one piece of it as the beginning of a new work.
Most of all, have fun! Keep the pump primed.
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©2021 Marilyn Rose
