Getting started

Hi everyone, my March newsletter is a little late and I can’t think of any excuse other than that we’ve had wall to wall visitors!

We’ve still had some crazily hot days, even though we’re now into autumn – then last week we had snow halfway down the mountains, which put paid to my dahlias.

Korimako has attracted visitors for all over the past few weeks – UK, Israel, France, Scandinavia, Canada and USA, and a surprising number of them have been artists. And others want to be but can’t quite get started on their journey, so today I thought that I’d just give you my thoughts on that one…

“A journey begins with a single step”. Is so true. I remember one day picking up one of my daughters coloured pencils and sketching the pumpkin I’d just picked. And the rest, as they say, is history.

I think that what trips a lot of budding painters up is their own expectations of instant success. Too often I hear that someone has “bought lots of art materials” and then not used them. There’s something intimidating about expensive supplies, especially blank white watercolour paper and tubes of paint. It’s hard to give yourself permission to play with them when, honestly , that’s exactly what you need to do. While those tubes of wc seem pricey, you only need a tiny amount of pigment to colour your water. And for playing you can always buy a cheap watercolour pad, though you’ll outgrow that quickly,
While the best way to learn is usually a beginners workshop, I suggest that you have a play with your materials first, so that you begin to become familiar with them.

The other really important early step is practising drawing. If your drawing is wrong then your painting will never be right.
And the best way to do this is to buy yourself a sketchbook and a few pencils and just draw something little every day – what’s on your bench? In your garden shed? Your washing basket?Your desk at work? Commit to just 10 minutes a day and do it regularly, just for yourself, and you’ll start to see improvement. This really helps you learn to look , which is one of the cornerstones of painting. These sketchbooks from Gordon Harris online are what I use all the time, and you can use them for watercolour too once you feel like tackling colour.

If you’re interested in a beginners workshop I have just two spaces left on 18th/19th May – the workshop is here at my studio, please contact me if you’d like more info.

My “Flights of Fancy “ bird workshop for Watercolour NZ in Wellington is now taking bookings (not for total beginners) , please contact WCNZ directly if you’re interested.

I’ve had requests to run a workshop or two in the North Island – maybe Whanganui / Wairarapa, so please let me know if you’d be interested.

And I do offer individual tuition here at my studio if you’re passing and need a helping hand for an hour or two!

So, off you go and play with your paint, and I’ll go back to making my pasta sauce from my abundant tomatoes.

Jan 🙂