Welcome to the world of watercolours

or more specifically – watercolour pencils.  This is an interest of my wonderful husband, so I decided (as part of my exploring creativity year) to tag along and take the class with him.

I know nothing about watercolours, and even less about watercolour pencils. The class description states that we will learn techniques for applying pigment, secrets to creating luminous colours (love the word “luminous”) and how to use the brush.

First class – only 4 of us – the other two are:  a woman who took training as a graphic artist and then found it difficult to get work, so went on to become a homecare nurse, and Trina, who proudly stated she’s 62 and this will be the 5^th time she has taken this same class. She’s “not very good”, but must get something out of it. Bit of a character, Trina is.

Just one colour for the first lesson – black. We’re going to learn about “pulling” which basically means scribble with your pencil then put water on your (number 10) brush, and pull the pigment across.  Voilà. 

Four techniques

We created a chart with different “values” – important word in the watercolour world. Apparently the idea with pulling is to go over the darker colour with your wet brush and pull down the pigment - thus creating a lighter value.  Oh - and the hairdryer. We use the hairdryer A LOT. How did people do watercolour drawing before electricity?

Chart of different values

Anyway, we then practiced doing an eye and lips of Jean Simmons (Spartacus, The Grass is Greener, The Thorn Birds, and Howard Hughes’ obsession – is this a film appreciation class too?) with the assigned homework of finishing the portrait (ha!).

I found the shading (OK- pulling) challenging, especially knowing that if I put on too much pigment or too much water or too much of anything, I’m basically screwed. No eraser will help.  (How I miss graphite!)  Next week - 2 colours.  I think it we're painting a dog's nose.