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Watercolour Weekends in the Peak District National Park

Tuition

A watercolour weekend is a taught course with lots of tutor support using learning conversations. We do not use photographs immediately in the tuition and practice. We work on a similar structure of learning similar to that which happened when Dr Monro invited J M W Turner  and Thomas Girtin to produce watercolours from other artists' work. The step that needs to be taken moving from a photograph to a watercolour painting is often too big a leap for many leisure painters. When Turner and Girtin used paintings from well know artists at the time it helped them to develop their own style without continuing to paint like the artist from which they copied. What I am saying avoids artists wishing to improve their skills from falling into the trap of concentrating on the many colours that exist in a photograph.

We also use black and white or sepia photographs as the next stage so that there is more appreciation of tonal values before getting compleley seduced by colour. This allows us to focus on the use of water in watercolour to create tone values that result in an impression of the subject rather than a topographical outcome.

Practicing watercolour painting in a deliberative method progressing in this way leads to better outputs and in turn impact upon the image being produced on paper.

This is a brief introduction the methodology and the method adopted on a watercolor weekend. For those that work in other medium, acrylic, oil, pastel this step by step approach is beneficial. Using watercolour is a medium that lends itself to practicing producing a finished work in this way.