I've always loved the aesthetic of watercolour painting and this is something I have aimed to capture to some degree in my stitched work. Never having had any lessons in watercolour techniques it seemed like a great excuse for a bit of personal development when I spotted a weekend learning how to paint expressive birds with artists Tom Shepherd at the Phoenix Studio in Towersey.
We started our painting journey by getting back to drawing basics, looking carefully at proportions, alignment and angles using simple lines and shapes. It was then onto a painting exercise exploring the basics of light and shade and paint consistency.
Painting and drawing practice with a raven image
We then applied what we had learnt to slightly more complex subjects, looking at at how to capture light and shade on a white bird then and black and white bird. Funnily enough penguins came up as a practice subject, which I felt was handy given I am working on a penguin piece at the moment. It was really interesting to see how Tom used colour to create shade and depth without using any black or grey paint. That seems to be how Tom gets such vibrancy in his paintings.
Tom Shepherd Penguin Demo
My practice penguins
For day two we moved onto more colourful exotic birds, it was quite nice to have a change of subject matter and play with those vibrant colours. The subjects included a handsome hyacinth macaw and then we finished with a pair of fabulous flamingos. I really enjoyed the experience, Tom was a great teacher and I found it really helpful to learn and practice some of the theory around watercolour techniques. Now it's just finding that time to practice what I learnt and applying it to my current practice. Tom also runs a "Painting Expressive Animals" course which I have mentally assigned to development work for next year, looking forward to it already!