Each painting has a life of its own. Our reference photo is juts a jumping off point! Something to refer back to. So we don't have t o copy it exactly.
It can be so easy to look at a complex subject a feel overwhelmed, or not have a clue where to start, especially with watercolours!!
However, if we can learn to look at and interpret our subject matter in a different way, whatever the subject is. Then this can make a huge difference to our painting.
The biggest step in creating successful watercolour paintings is learning to simplify the subject down.
The easiest way I have found to do this is to squint my eyes and look for simple but accurate shapes, as big as ones as possible. Ones that ave obvious difference in overall tonal value. We can then look at the subject as a jigsaw of these big pieces of differing tones.
Once we've broke ur subject up into these shapes we can ask, is it a light? A dark? or somewhere in between, a mid-tone? If it's a mid-tone, is it a darker one from the shadow group or. lighter one the half tone, light side, group?
With watercolour painting we can simply put in the dominant lighter tone and then drop in the other darker tones as we go. The nature of the medium creates variety and interest.
Even a complex subject matter can be broken down into very simple shapes and simple tones but yet still create a strong sense of atmosphere, light and realism, and often in doing so we create much more interesting, successful and more dramatic watercolour paintings!
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Full length version soon to be available on my School of Watercolour:
https://schoolofwatercolour.co.uk/
---- Links to me ----
https://schoolofwatercolour.co.uk/
https://www.instagram.com/tomshepherdartist
https://www.tomshepherdart.com/
https://www.stitcher.com/show/creative-perspectives
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Other Recent videos:
Create a STRONG FOCAL POINT -
https://youtu.be/vQ9bIEmgRoQ
How to Create Strong Light with watercolours -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wj90EvVNvAs
Do this with watercolour
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVq5nF2bW-0
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Previous Watercolour Bites Episodes:
1) Basic Terms - https://youtu.be/4icHxwdzQYQ
2) Colour vs Tone - https://youtu.be/qnVjTLxivQI
3) Tonal Values (Part 1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OE6itosi2Hw
4) Tonal Values (Part 2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A8s21LOpuA
5) Tonal Values (Part 3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9h1qXH30Vs
6) Single Most Important thing in Watercolour - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1spfpfhqCuY
7) Simple Watercolour Process - https://youtu.be/AbvleXlDoBw
8) Top 10 Tips - https://youtu.be/PZb-3jYxp84
9) Watercolour Brushes - https://youtu.be/-i3EQJ2Sekc
10) Mixing Darks - https://youtu.be/dqfWN5uZwJE
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---- Links to me ----
https://www.instagram.com/tomshepherdartist
https://www.tomshepherdart.com/
https://www.stitcher.com/show/creative-perspectives