-Let's grab a Coffee and talk about Watercolor!
This is where I share my stories, my technique, my thoughts on art, and announcements. I am in production of making a weekly video for this. But as for now, they will be in written form. I hope you enjoy them and find them informative and helpful. Feel free to comment and ask me anything. Ask me what's your biggest struggle when you paint watercolor.
A first clean wash is really important for a successful painting. If your first wash is dirty, it not only affects the look of the painting, it also affects your moral negatively! Imagine you set up your painting materials and did a good drawing. Then comes the first wash. All seems well and good until you did something irreversible and messed up the first wash. It will really kill your motivation to continue painting. The thing is, it’s not so much about what you should be doing to keep the wash clean, is more about what you should NOT do.
Lately, I've been getting emails from people telling me it is difficult for them to find time to paint. The older we grow, the less time we seem to have. With all the chores and errand we need to take care every day, this can certainly be a challenge to face. My wife is a full-time mom which I argue is one of the most difficult job in the world. To alleviate her stress, I help her to get my kids to bed during the evening. After that, I am facing dirty dishes in the sink while trash piling up waiting for me to take them out. All of these while that white piece paper on my easel is waiting for me to turn it into a painting.
There are so many things we can compare with other people. As an artist, I often compare myself to many other artists. As a YouTuber, I also compare my content and channel with other YouTubers. However, I know this is a mental trap I need to avoid. The art world is not a zero-sum game. Just because someone's work got praised or sold doesn't mean I become less of an artist. And just because someone's YouTube channel is getting more subscribers doesn't mean my channel is losing followers.
Everyone is looking for that magic bullet, or magic trick to make their work look better. Everyone wants shortcut or 5-steps to become a painting master. And if there is one, I While I am a firm believer of deliberate practice, it's important to know that you still need to invest your time into it. Painting, like many other skills, is obtained and mastered by doing. Sure, talented people might reach higher skill level faster, but I also know many talented people who never get as good as they can be because they don't put in the time for it.
Muddy color and dirty wash are the most common struggles I've heard from the students. While there can be many factors, I believe the biggest reason is we don't let watercolor flow. I often say let it flow. Watercolor is alive, it does what it wants and our job as a watercolor artist is to "work with it" not "control it".
Welcome to 2019! Here we are, at the time to set our new year resolution again. I wonder how many new year resolution we make and how many we actually accomplish by the end of the year. For me... it is usually none of them. I wonder why it is so hard to keep the promise we make to ourselves. It’s obviously not the case when it comes to something easy though. I rarely see someone making a new year resolution of “I am going to watch a good movie this year” or “I am going to enjoy my favorite drink every week”. Can’t those be someone’s new year resolution? I think they can be. However, that takes little to no effort. And by doing those, we are not gaining much growth.