My watercolor technique

In the slide show to the right, you can see the steps I use in painting a watercolor - in this case a view of Place des Voges in Paris, springtime.

I start by painting the sky. Then I proceed from the lightest colors, progressively putting in darker tones. I am always aware of the final image I want to create, but as watercolor is an unpredictable media, I go with the flow. On site or plein air watercolor can be even more unpredictable and challenging. If you can master watercolor, then oil painting is easy. It also trains your eye and hones one's ability to master a media.

N.B. Watercolor purists will eschew using any white pigment in painting watercolors. Opaque white mixed with colors would make a water color a gouache painting. Judiciously applied white can be used for highlights and for certain results. The French are masters of gauche.

All watercolors begin with a sound drawing and composition, many of my watercolors are 'documentation' that I will use with a sketch and photographs to do an oil painting. For a watercolor that stands on its own, I will usually work in the studio.

I first learned the English school of watercolor painting of Girtin from my teachers Mr Hahn and Wexler. They use black tonal washes to achieve a rather monochromatic watercolor. Turner's early watercolors followed this method but he later used a broader range of colors, avoiding black or bistre. My own method is a modified version of Turner that I learned from a French artist, Jean Lefevre. He taught me how to put in the sky first, then take a light to dark progress of painting, vs the English from dark to light method. John Singer Sargent's and Sir William Russell Flint's watercolors also inpire me.

Contact me for classes or workshop information.