LOOSE watercolour painting tutorial

In this little watercolour tutorial I talk about a few principles, techniques and also ways of thinking that may help you you loosen up and create more painterly and energetic paintings!

So much of this looser more painterly approach is about learning to look at our subject in a particular way.

This way of seeing then gives us a solid foundation and structure from which to really play and experiment with the water and pigment - including lost of wet in wet work, and generally leaving the watercolour to simply do its thing.

I hope you enjoy ;)

----- School of Watercolour ------

You will find full length real-time version of this Watercolour Water Buffalo over on my school of watercolour (in the "Patreon Archive")

Take your watercolours to the next level - break through frustration!
You can become a FREE member for life to give it a go :)

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Upcoming Online Courses:

Figure in Watercolour (Nov'23)

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-- School of Watercolour --

---- Links to me ----

[tomshepherdartist]

Hope you enjoy this one guys.

School of Watercolour

Online Mini-course on painting human figure

[GmaRocky]

Thank you. This helped explain a lot when I see these “ non traditional “ color paintings. Its lovely

[SylviaHowell-oe]

Thank you for this great lesson on big shapes, shadow, and what holds a painting together. Yay!

[vladimirkrasniy]

This looks like finally something that can make me feel I can do loose watercolour

[melanieopperman]

Tom, you are the 'wild one of watercolour'. As tricky as this medium is, watching you work makes me realise I need to carve out time and persevere with this medium to at least give watercolour a chance... even if mine end up being underpaintings for pastels.

[wonkywhisker]

Love this, thanks for sharing, very helpful.

[viewfromthecrowsnest]

You are the watercolorist and tutor I've been looking for. Thanks you for your videos.

[hfarms]

Not only loose brush work but loose colors. Turquoise, purple, red, pink, yellow on a water buffalo!

[joykruczay]

As always, thanks ever so much for sharing your talents with us! We are all on a quest to find our style, which will likely evolve over time. If we all followed the advice of famous artists to the letter, all of our paintings would look the same. So many artists glaze frequently. For myself, it is the result of not having a clear enough plan from the outset, and timidity in the initial stages. This leads to most of my paintings being quite overworked. The first workshop I too was with Tony Couch (who studied under Ed Whitney and mentioned him frequently). He, too, felt that one should just "paint it as dark as you want the first time" and avoid layers. Whitney used to stand out in the hallway and yell in the door, "Paint darker!", knowing it was good advice for most of the class.

Tony also stressed the importance of value and design, stating color was the least important thing. Your technique of using multiple colors for animal underpaintings reminds me of the techniques used in "Painting Wildlife in Watercolor, by Peggy MacNamara. Light washes that are more focused on value rather than color and form the foundation of the paintings. She uses more layers and glazes, which I have a tendency to muddy up, due to my lack of patience. Your work is brighter and bolder.

[rebeccahewitt]

Thank you very much for this excellent demonstration. Loved watching how you manipulated the colors, lights, and darks. Thank you from hot Arizona here in the U.S.!

[denisefortier]

Hello from Canada Tom! I have been watching your videos for a long time and always admired your deft hand, exciting compositions and your awesome laid-back teaching style. Just went through your Watercolour Bites series. Wish you had been my university prof!
All those lessons and basics from many years ago came together again because of your simple yet complete mini tutorials. What a treasure for new artists, and a reminder for those of us who are getting a little sloppy and wondering why paintings are just not quite right.
Thank you so very much for making this available! ❤

[sandrazern]

Beautiful painting! Thank you for these tips!

[simondo]

Excellent demonstration of light and dark.

[christinefalconer]

Thanks, always love your use of colour. Very free and expressive.

[derekcutsinger]

I have learned so much from your work! Thank you for sharing your knowledge and skill with us!

[colleenmcchesney]

Wow I love how you used those pops of colors for the background & under painting. Definitely a great fun loose painting. Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts, progress, & process with us! 🥰

[Judy]

Really nice! I love the process that you use. It's fearless and turns out to be so stunning! WOW! Thank you for sharing with us.

[SezCreate]

This blew my mind actually. I have always wanted to hear exactly the break down of using multiple colours that aren’t true to the subject but still keeping the integrity of the image. ( For any medium really ) I love colour so this is exactly what I needed. The theory of shapes made so much sense. I am brand new to watercolour and trying to loosen up….this has helped so Thanks so much...following for more !

[ranjanachand]

Awesome, as usual, can't imagine using the colours you've used so effectively😂

[gwenharrison]

So inspired after watching a few of your videos. So free, yet illustrated well. I am pursuing with determination.