The last few workshops I have participated in as instructor/facilitator/coach here locally in Sylva and Franklin were so much fun. I am always exhausted after two intense days of trying to pour everything I know about traditional watercolor techniques out onto the eager students.

Workshops are intense.  I feel compelled to share everything I know and as much as I have heard secondhand about how to use watercolor.  The way I use watercolor on 140 pound cold press paper is only one way to use the medium.

There is dry brush and pouring and charging and well you get the idea.

I use it another way too – on plate surfaces and I have yet to try and teach anyone about that because I am still trying to figure that out!   That is the work that I have in galleries now.   It is something I invented and am still inventing.

But you have to start somewhere.  

The best place to start however, is to draw.  Draw and draw all the time.  Look at things around you and draw them.  Draw your hand and your feet, the lamps and the tables, the cups, the plates, the stove, the dog, the cat. Draw until you feel your eye moving in sync with your hand.  Do line drawings and contour drawings and perspective.  Learn shading, hatching, stippling and then do it again.

Once you learn to see shape and relationships between shapes and the negative shapes between them start looking at color.  Look at the colors in shadow and full light.   Look at the light as it bounces and where it goes and if it becomes cool or warm.  

You have your work cut out for you.   Fill up sketch book after sketch book or get you an iPad and iPencil and a drawing program and fill it up file after file. I dare you.   

And if you want – come paint with me.   I promise to give you everything I’ve got.    You may find out at the end that this is simply something you don’t want to take much time doing.    And that is okay.   But you’ll never know unless you try.