My First Real Exercise from the New Course

I don't know why I chose this weird rock scene for my first exercise from the Watercolour Secrets course. I mean, I don't like rocks and mountains as much as Bob Davies seems to.

It didn't turn out too badly. The reflections are convincing enough and I like the small blue puddles in the sand.

It was good practice even though this is not the kind of scene that I will paint when I've reached a certain skill level. And I do acquire more control over the brushes and the paint with every picture I paint.

Populating Landscapes

I don't remember where I first saw the expression "populating landscapes", but it seems to describe very well the action of adding human figures to a landscape as a sort of "accessory" -- as opposed to a person or persons being the main feature or the main focus of the painting.

The only problem with that idea was that I had no clue how to achieve the kind of simplified, stylized, faceless figures that I was seeing in the kind of watercolour paintings that I like: from Ron Hazell to Alvaro Castagnet, and everyone in-between.

Each artist has his or her own formula for rendering people, and that includes Bob Davies, the author or the Watercolour Secrets DVD course that I've just bought. He starts out with a small circle on top of an upside-down cone which he fills out with clothing, and that's about it. It's effective enough.

On Saturday, I took out a quarter sheet of 200-lb paper, inserted the Figures DVD into the laptop, and followed Bob's directions. These are my first attempts at the basic male and female figure:

After a few hours,  I could see a definite improvement.

Sunday morning, I turned the sheet around and continued with the exercises on the DVD. First a family, then a cyclist, and finally a couple in love. Here are my results:

As you can see, I made a few corrections with gouache on the shoulders of the man on the left -- my guys' shoulders always seem to end up too wide -- and to the handlebars of the bicycle. But the couple on the right turned out pretty good right away, even the dog. I did deviate from Bob's example by putting the man's arm on the woman's back.

Speaking of Ron Hazell, he does his people quite differently, more like two cones: one for the top and an inverted one for the bottom.

For my last figure, I copied one of his women. If you look at his gallery, she's in A Summer Morning (No. 3). I think I did pretty well.

I took this sheet to the class on Wednesday, and everyone seemed to like my little figures.

I'm almost ready to start populating my landscapes.

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/