Workshop in May

The great man himself, Joseph Zbukvic -- one of my most favourite watercolour artists.

Zbukvic's demo painting, still wet

Zbukvic's second demo painting

Zbukvic's demos at front for inspection and copying

In May 2015, I was fortunate enough to be able to attend a watercolour workshop, courtesy of the Watercolour Society of WA, taught by the great watercolour artist Joseph Zbukvic.  I was also unfortunate enough to have been very, very ill with something that was directly turning into a nasty infection known here as quinsy.  However, the night before the workshop, I dragged myself to the doc, who told me it was mono/glandular fever (it most definitely wasn't) and I should stay home from the workshop (I didn't) and who took a lot of blood tests, the results of which I received while in an ambulance a day or so later.  I promise I didn't breathe on anyone -- but they couldn't have caught it anyway :)
I am so glad I went to this workshop.  Wow, a huge learning curve -- I had only been painting earnestly for about 3 months at this point so I was very very new.  I think I had done only 3 or 4 paintings at the time.  I was pretty chuffed when the great Mr. Z complimented my work and said I did not appear to be a beginner and that at least I knew how to make a wash. 

Above are the paintings that Mr Z. did, and below are my poor copies.  Poor as they may be, they are hanging on the wall as a reminder of that fairly awesome day.

My first copy from Zbukvic demo.

My second copy from Zbukvic demo.  Now you can see why HE makes the big bucks. :)

The Story of How I Got Hooked On Watercolour

 

When I was little, my favourite thing in the world to do was to draw.  A born and bred night owl, I would stay up late into the night working on sketches.  I drooled over boxes of Crayola 64 right through adulthood.  But I never took the time once I reached high school to really develop my art skills.  I was always in the music stream (flute, piano, singing) and didn't take the time to continue on with my art.  While I always dreamed of getting back to it, university and college and work and marriage and children followed one right after the other in a healthy but busy (if not overwhelming) kind of way. 

About three years ago, after a long stretch of babies and diapers and being-stuck-at-home, I finally decided that NOW was the time to figure out what I could do with art.  I had a deep natural interest in watercolour, and decided that I'd try it out.  I enrolled in an 8-week community watercolour art course at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, made myself a great big art portfolio bag to haul my supplies around in, bought a $10 set of paint pans, and joined in.

I worked on four paintings during the 8 weeks, one of which is pictured above, and all of which are in the trash now.  Primarily what I learned at that time was to be accurate in the drawing stage.  I really had to work hard on that, but once I got that into my head, the rest of it came a little more easily.  I was the only person left in the last class, but my teacher said something that stuck with me:  "You will be selling your paintings."  Of course that was encouraging!  I was determined to keep learning.

Since then, we moved overseas, I sold what little art supplies I had, and was too busy until this year to take it up again.   It is through friends who attend a little local community art centre that my interest and entry into the world of art has begun again.  This little blog is to record the progress of what I'm learning.  I'll endeavour to put everything on here, flops and all.  I hope you enjoy.