TEXTURE

Texture is a quality that can be so easily overlooked in painting. Try to develop your skill with it. Perhaps you could use thin washy paint layers in the background and thicker textural layers in the foreground. This is easier in oils or acrylics, but you can create varied textures in watercolours as well, by using dry brush, for example. Do not try using watercolour straight from the tube, however; it may crack as it dries. Respect your medium and work within its limitations.

Take one landscape or still-life subject and work it out in several versions using different depth techniques in each. Then try a combination of methods, in different proportions, to see which is most effective. These do not have to be ‘finished’ pieces; after all, you are hoping to learn from them. Quick, small studies are ideal.

Depth is something most of us try to achieve in our work. By experimenting with these techniques and exercises your skill will increase and your paintings improve.

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SEVEN-MINUTE SKIES

Is there a quick and simple method of painting a sky in watercolour?

Answered by: Winston Oh

Have we not all had the experience of drawing a good landscape complete with fine architectural detail and then wrecking it immediately by messing up the sky? In order to succeed, it is important to pay attention to details such as your brush, paper, amount of water, paint, and speed of application.

Think of the sky as a loosening-up exercise. It is the least demanding component of your landscape. Unlike a building or other physical structures, you are not expected to paint the exact sky before you. Instead, you have the freedom to create the sky of your choice to suit the overall composition or the atmosphere you have chosen to depict.

Using the wet-on-wet technique is preferable because it results in a soft effect in cool colours, without hard edges, naturally contrasting with the stronger landscape tones and putting the clouds in the far distance where they belong.

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