Watercolour painting

I have all the equipment and have attended some classes in the past. So shall be watching and hope it inspires me. I can remember soending a whole day at a class -packed lunch- and can absolutely recommend it for stress relief and something that takes you out of yourself it was brilliant!!

I shall certainly be watching. I really ought to do more painting - haven't done any for ages. Even when you are lacking inspiration, which I am most of the time these days, just putting a few washes on some paper and seeing where it leads you can be hugely satisfying.

Yes, I'm so excited ,I'm planning to haul my art stuff out of the cupboard later today . It looks as if it's going to be a great inspirational series !

The Great Painting Challenge (I think that's what it's called) is starting again tomorrow at 6 pm on BBC 1 if anybody's interested.

Sorry! Can't upload the picture from my gallery, but if I've understood correctly you can access there.

I began painting on silk and I love it. There are different approaches and you don't have to be able to draw to make effective patterns. Basically you stretch a piece of silk over a frame and using silk painting inks, you can make random patterns and add texture by sprinkling salt onto the image which will absorb some of the dye to make patterns.

I draw onto the silk with gutta, a kind of gel which creates areas which will contain the dyes and stop them from spreading. The picture can be as simple or complicated as you wish. As I'm a 'fiddler' I can spend hours on tiny details but it doesn't have to be so complicated.

Not a brilliant photo - sorry, it's from my phone. It's a jug of stocks on a table with a patterned cloth, against a lace curtain. You can see that the silk is stretched over a frame and secured with special pins.

You will find lots of excellent lessons on youtube.

Along with all those other arty/crafty New Year resolutions such as trying to actually sew together the patchwork quilt I started 25 years ago ( might be cushion covers now) and trying my hand at candle making,I realise I've got a load of acrylic paint tubes ( if they haven't dried out ) wax crayons, and un-used canvases somewhere in the attic...
Thanks artiarticle for the kick start. Was going to say I'll start right now but the Wales / England match is too tense at the moment (lol)

NSO is there a college near you , or somewhere you could access a model? Life or costume. The discipline of painting real people can give you real impetus.

You might be interested in my website Artlimousin.com

I like watercolour painting and drawing and oils, in fact art is my passion. Sometimes I just love colour therapy and I never worry about whether the end result is 'good enough'

For the colouring in I use high quality coloured pencils that have a high pigment. You can then use them lightly, more heavily, or slightly damp.

However, although the end result is very pretty, I do find it rather boring and stopped after a while. I had understood that this would be a calming and relaxing pastime but found it to be irritating.

You are all very talented ...I may have a try at watercolours sometime, but for now I have just bought one of those adult colouring books with intricate patterns. Does any know what is best to use? Good pencils, or what? The spaces are small so it needs to be a fine nib. Thanks

Lovely painting. I paint and draw but find it difficult to do at home, so I go to an art class once a week with a tutor. It's the highlight of my week - I love it. It's a popular group and the numbers are growing - we have about 15-20 at the moment.
I wish I could afford to go on painting workshops and holidays- that would be my idea of heaven.

I used to go to an art class, and our teacher arranged a life class for us. The male model was a charming man who put us all at our ease so that we were comfortable with what we were doing. It was very interesting. I found the most difficult thing to draw were his glasses! I still have the pictures, and even one I did of DH 'in flagrante' and he made much more fuss about being a sitter!!

I went to an art class to learn to paint, it turned out the model had had a mishap in her car and could not attend. As I was new to the class the tutor ask would I mind if I could sit on the stool, fully dressed as a stand-in model [i did not even know it was a life class] I followed the tutors instruction and enjoyed is much that I have been life modding for the past 30 years. However I never did learn to paint.

Before so much of my time was taken up with grandchildren, I did a bit of watercolour painting. I found that I was better at copying than drawing a scene from life which I seem to remember my mother preferred as well. Researching family history I found a lot of ancestors were pottery painters, presumably copying from a template. Must run in the genes!

Because this is our 50th year together, DH and I decided we would buy a picture to mark the occasion. We went to a local auction house to look at a piece of art pottery and saw two of the most amazing marine watercolours. Not amazing from a point of view of subject matter - they were steam ships and I favour sail - but purely from a technical execution point of view. We couldn't walk away from them. They were sold as a pair and we picked them up for about a quarter of the price they went on the market for in 1987. I just love ships and boats - we are now pictorially overloaded with ships and boats, but these are now the pride of my collection. What a wonderful medium watercolour is!

What a lovely thread, I'll dust off my paints and have another go! It's not the result I'm pleased by but the wonderful feeling of absorption, great escapism!

I am trying! I find it so hard to produce what I have in my mind and I get discouraged quickly, I know I should be less self critical and just do it! I love buying all the paint's etc and get very enthusiastic until I realise that all the wonderful equipment in the world isn't going to make me Picasso! Someone has just been telling me wonderful things about Inktense pencils which you can use on fabric as well as paper, maybe these would make an artist of me..... I feel another purchase coming on?

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I used to paint a lot of acrylics - I even sold two or three - but I've not touched a paintbrush for at least a year as I seem to have run out of inspiration. I look in my art cupboard which is full of materials and I can't think of a thing to paint. Has anyone any hints on getting inspired, please?

Re the comments on colouring books.
There are some really lovely ones now with quite intricate designs
It would really depend on the paper as to using water soluble pencils,but soft colouring pencils are always nice.
It,s very therapeutic to fill empty spaces with colour.
If I didn,t paint myself,I would enjoy doing them.

I work as an artist and stretch my boards like so...Soak 140lbs paper in cold water in the bath for just a few minutes so that the paper size stays put,but the paper relaxes.I let it drip off quickly and get it straight onto a board where I apply the gummed paper strips (don,t wet the gummed paper too much,I quickly skim down it with damp sponge).I then quickly staple around the board where the paper edge and gum strip overlap.I dry the paper off with a hot hair dryer, the hills and hollows disappear in front of your eyes,and the paper is ready for work

I use acrylics like water colour and often as a colour wash over a pencil drawing.
Acrylics can be very delicate,and unlike water colour,they are fixed when dry and details can be added on top,unlike water colour which lifts from the paper if re-wetted.
If I run a class,I start people on washy acrylics as I think it is much easier to use.

A bonus....if you do a water colour painting using acrylics and your lovely painting still cockles,you can take it off the board,pop it back in the bath and re-stretch it without losing your work.

The most important thing about painting and drawing,is that you enjoy doing it.

For denser use of acrylic paint I use 250/300 lbs paper,unstretched.

I have decided that this year will be my watercolour year, so I have downed knitting needles, embroidery, rag tugging etc !

Its taken me years to realise that water colour painting is so much better when you use lovely thick paper. My flower painting is on Fabriano 3001b not paper, you don't need to stretch it and the water stays where you want it. The sheets are expensive, approx. £7.50, but you can cut them into 4 or smaller. It makes such a difference