using watercolor medium?

[jt]

Hi there Mark, or whoever. I am more of a musician than painter, but have dabbed in oils and w.c.'s for years. I'm trying to get serious about w.c. painting but cannot seem to make a breakthrough to get the effects I want. I have a couple great books, and see a lot more, but I find that all of these books, so far, seem to assume a certain level of technique that a freshman like me just doesn't have. I think what I need is to be able to WATCH someone handle the paint, really in-depth, for me to see what's needed. I've always found that, if I can see someone do it, I can grasp it. Can you recommend any really good long videos where someone demonstrates the techniques? I can do a little wet on wet, and I've got basic drawing skills, probably more than basic. I've heard w.c. is the trickiest painting style to grab onto, and I believe it.

Maybe you should film yourself demo'ing w.c. techniques and put it on disk and I'll buy it!
thanks,
jt

[masart]

A DVD or a video is something that I've been thinking about . . . but I know that doesn't help you right now. You can post questions in this forum or email me and I will do my best to give you any help I can. Nearly all of what I have learned I obtained from careful study of other artist's finished watercolors and then experimenting on my own. I spent almost two whole days at a Winslow Homer watercolor exhibit in Ft Worth about 15 years ago. I plan to continue rotating demonstrations on the website - even to the point of making some technique demonstrations.

[jt]

Hi Mark, and thanks. Good, glad you're thinking about it. It's so easy to do these days. Frank Clarke at the 'Simply Painting' site has put quite a few demos online to view (on a per pay), he does a broad range of demos but he's very basic on the technique, which I like a lot, but I'd also like to see some advanced tech too. For starters you could easily film yourself with any old V8 or digital vidcam and have it transferred to a video file and throw it onto your site, that is all routine webbuilding these days. Let me know when you get something out in that direction. Thanks.

[masart]

Scout - I will be glad to give an evaluation if you think it might be helpful. I usually found videos and demonstrations informative, but of limited value. Ultimately I had to do it myself and I always found that trial and error was my best teacher. When I started painting over 25 years ago there were no DVD's and very few videos. I attended some demonstrations and quickly discovered that the people demonstrating had developed some "formula" paintings that they could demonstrate over the peiod of and hour. As I said before - that was informative but what I really needed to see were artists attempting something for the first time - and watch their struggles . . . and believe me they(we) all have them. My best teachers are the works of other artists. Spending time in front of an original watercolor by and artist like Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, Seargent, Andrew or Jamie Wyeth taught me most of what I know. Of course it would have been great to be able to occasionally discuss a particular technique, but most of them are dead . . . or aren't inclined to have such discussions with other artists. If you've read this forum you can see that others have asked me some questions and I'm glad to share what I know.