Where do you start when you want to be a creative person?

Disclaimer : I have a neurological condition called Functional Neurological Disorder ( FND for short) which affects my ability to read and communicate. I will do my very best to catch typos or phrases that make no sense, but since it's just little old me typing and doing my own proof reading (no AI blogs here!) please forgive me for any mistakes!

Welcome to my little corner of the painting universe. I re-found my love of water colour painting in 2020 when the world was locked in with nothing but my paints and my family. Over three years I have done a lot of painting, many bad, many with unintended mistakes and experienced many improvements. Painting has been a lifeline, particularly as I dealt with serious health conditions and trouble keeping up with my full time professions, being a veterinarian. When life was very uncertain and difficult, I would turn to the paints to help me feel in the moment, focused on the small things and productive, even if it was just for me.  

While I am not formally a teacher I wanted to use this platform to discuss and share some my own experiences and watercolour journey, particularly with those who are new to the medium. So let's start off with, in my opinion anyway, the biggest and best step in becoming a watercolour artist, or any kind of artist for that matter. 

Make mistakes. Make ugly marks. Make blooms. Get super cozy and comfortable with that sheet of water colour paper whose only purpose is to help you practice. Pick up the brush and just do the doing. I know this sounds so simple, but I think many an aspiring painter and creative can relate that finding yourself staring at a blank expanse of white can be daunting. You have an image in your head, or maybe a photo and you want your painting to turn out just so. The colours must be sublime, the shadows perfect, the textures realistic and convincing. It's going to be ... your masterpiece.

It is beyond counting how many times I started a painting with this mindset and ultimately set myself up for being really unkind to myself and beating up on my own self-esteem. I want you to know that I have made every watercolour mistake that one could possibly make. It's taken me years to even begin to get comfortable with making them.

Particularly in watercolour painting, beginnings are difficult. Watercolour paints are usually transparent and colours are fainter once dried. Colour and depth are usually built with patience and layers and drying, and repeat. Many artists will speak of the dreaded ' ugly phase ', where a painting looks like a skeleton of something that could never transform into art. I would reach this phase with many paintings and simply give up. The paper was abandoned, thrown in the bin and paints were disappointingly thrown away. I would fret over the wasted paint and wasted paper and wonder what had gone wrong and what kind of magic made watercolours so beautiful for other people, and why that magic wasn't with me?

One of my very first and favourite paintings, is currently for sale on my site as a greeting card. I could talk about the painting that was acknowledged in an international art competition, but that's not really the beginning. The beginning was a purple tulip. The beginning of feeling like creativity was possible and at my finger tips was me wanting to paint a deep rich tulip with shimmer and shadow in it's petals, and this was going to be just for me. Even if I wasn't liking what was on the paper I was going to just paint. When the layers were dry, I painted again. When it wasn't bold enough, I layered some more. I played, I experimented. And I realised that my gigantic task of painting was actually just a few small brush strokes at a time. On this occasion when i gave myself permission to not create my great master piece, I created something I was really proud of. I thought for the first time ' I made something I LIKE. '

Most importantly, I realised that all those crumpled paintings, all those pieces of paper that weren't going to be seen by anyone but me were small lessons. And all those small lessons mattered. All those mistakes were the building blocks of knowing what kind of painting effects I liked or disliked, or what colours suited my painting style; or what paper worked best with my paint consistencies and reference drawings. So in the same way you lay a house brick by brick, your mistakes will all be the foundations of that day that you go ' Hey you know what, this is a good painting! '

I hope to encourage mistakes as my painting career continues and also provide some painting exercises for beginner painters ( like myself as I still consider myself a beginner). Over the next few weeks and months I will be uploading a free downloadable painting exercises that are not meant to be a full work of art, but an important building block or technique that will help play a role in making great paintings that YOU LIKE. Remember, the only critic that matters here, is you. So if you feel like painting a full painting is just too daunting, make yourself a warm drink, set up a quiet cozy place where you have permission to make mistakes, use up paper and know that with every brush stroke you are building yourself up as an artist. And if you throw the paper in the bin, we can keep that between you and me.

This weeks exercise will focus on a topic I struggled with through my first year of painting: ' What size brush to use for what size shape? ' . The exercise will be found in my Free Downloads section of this website. The file will be available as a PDF file with further instructions attached to the exercise. I hope it will provide a fun and relaxing activity that will train your art brain and hands. Happy painting!