How to – paint watercolor with unexpected freedom and see how I approach this experimental exercise in this easy-to-follow tutorial video.
Work without any sort of reference. Or, if you need or want to, make a simple thumbnail-sized sketch that is going to help you make sense of your lights and darks – at this stage don’t concern yourself with midtones, details, subject matter, etc. Or you can also use some of your previous paintings – as I do here – and loosely base your idea on it. Though care should be taken so you won’t stick to the original too closely.
Remember that all you want to paint in this exercise is an impression. It can be closer to or further from reality. It can even be completely abstract. It can be somewhere in the middle. The point is to use color bravely, to make shapes boldly, to paint with gusto and to leave a mark that is visceral and touches the soul. Make it as free as if a child painted it.
I find it helpful to find a paper that I previously discarded for some reason. This helps me to treat the painting as not something precious, finished and serious but as a sketch, an experiment, a completely unimportant exercise nobody is ever going to see.
Every artist needs room to experiment. In our “serious” work we often don’t like to do that as we already have an imprint of an idea in our mind and we fear to corrupt this idea with the unexpectedness of our subconscious mind. To learn to overcome this block find a piece of paper that you discarded, grab a large brush and put down some paint. Don’t plan too much but make up as you go and play with colors, play with values and play with shapes. Play like children play.
