PaintBox Tip #67, 7 things I'm thinking while I'm painting

Hello there *|FNAME|*

The superbly cool thing about watercolour is, once you've done all your research and preparatory drawings, design etc and you're hitting paper with water ... it's all on ... right now!!

The difficult thing about watercolour is that once you're hitting the paper with water, it's all on ... very scary ... right now!!

watercolour is FULL of dichotomies!!

ooohhh ... what to do?

here are 7 things I'm thinking while I'm painting ...

1. this part is wet but it's raw sienna and it looks stunningly luminescent and glowingly beautiful with burnt sienna dropped next to it ... let them mingle. i'm using harmonious colours.
2. this part should be a dark shadow so i'll drop some dark cool violet or a neutral violet mixed from my palette. i'm thinking about my value range.
3. I've got too many hard edges, while it's still damp i'll spray some water to get some of them to run and blend. I'm thinking about Edge variety.
4. In my focal area, i'm about to place my brush next to a vibrant green so I'll need some neutral lightish red next to it ... maybe alizarin with some of the vibrant green mixed into it or burnt sienna with a tiny amount of cobalt blue in it - depends on what palette I'm using. Here I'm thinking about complementary colours.
5. i've painted enough brush strokes with my 1 inch flat brush time to change to my number 16 round. I'm thinking about shape variety.
6. this part should be in the background but is has a light yellow pulling it forward, I'll neutralise it and make it recede into the background with a glaze of a dark coolish purple - perspective.
7. I've got a really super shape here, i'll repeat it 2 more times, different sizes, different directions and not exactly the same shape - repetition.

and there's much more as you can imagine.

Watercolour painting demands your complete attention, keep focussed while you are painting and stay in the zone. 

keep playing my friend!!​