Watercolour Secrets Course

I was excited when the mailman delivered the Watercolour Secrets Course that I had ordered online. I had looked at it before but at US$95, the price was beyond my budget at the time -- I had just forked up $100 for a 10-week course in Fredericton (ten weekly 2-hour sessions, that is).

And then, a few weeks ago, I get an email from the course's creator, Bob Davies, announcing a half-price deal. $56 Canadian, including shipping.

I couldn't resist. $56 for a complete course for beginners, consisting of 9 two-hour DVDs:

1. Getting Started
2. Drawing for Watercolours
3. Skies
4. Mountains, Hills & Rocks
5. Trees & Foliage
6. Water
7. Buildings & Structures
8. Figures
9. Animals & Artifacts

I also got PDFs of all the sketches for the exercises painted during the course. You print them and trace them in order to be able to paint along with Mr. Davies. (Which implies a lot of stopping and starting, which I'm sure is easier with a DVD player than a laptop!)

To be precise, it's a pretty complete landscape painting course. No flowers, no still lifes, for instance. Still...

I have viewed part of every disc and so far, it's mostly good news. Mr. Davies does all the things that are so lacking in most tutorials and demos: he tells you and shows you exactly which colours he is mixing, and to which consistency. That is crucial for a beginner. He also explains what he's doing and why. He is very patient indeed!

He does skip the occasional step, a frustrating habit that all video teachers seem to have. I wish they wouldn't do that! It's usually those all-important finishing touches that get skipped, much to my disappointment.

Also, Mr. Davies needs to talk to his cameraman, who has the habit of not re-focusing the camera when he does a close-up, which results in some very blurry pictures. In addition, the part of the DVD on trees that interests me is all out of focus, and I'm hoping that Mr. Davies will re-shoot that lesson some day, because it's a very important one.

Here's a link to Bob Davies' website which has some free tutorials and other good stuff:

http://www.how-to-draw-and-paint.com/

And this is the link to the different versions of the Watercolour Secrets course:

http://www.watercoloursecrets.com/