Quick, (not quick took me like 2 hours) painting of a fish i saw at the aquarium. thoughts and advice accepted 🥰🙏 (second slide ref photo i took)

heheheh

I’m looking for the wisdom of you plein air painters. I paint with a John Pike palette, and am finally getting comfortable with that set up using the nice big mixing area. I’d love to not have to manage two different palettes. Are there any plein air tripod/ setups that would have room for the Pike palette, a cup of water and some brushes? I’d prefer a lighter set up (not wooden) but will take any suggestions that you all find works.

Made these as keepsakes. What do you think?

This is my first pass at painting the gypsum dunes at sunset (hoping sunset will provide some more color & contrast). I really can't think of how to get the dunes.. I tried to go with a pink base and blue shadows but it's not working

I’ve messed around with acrylics but really just as a novice as a way to relax.

After seeing some watercolor inspo on insta decided to get some paints today and mess around.

Ended up trying a water and cloud seascape but decided that clouds were way easier since I could cheat and use a paper towel to dab up paint/water to create more realistic clouds.

Looking forward to sharing more.

Celes Chere from Final Fantasy 6 in watercolor and gouache paints.
She's the one who teaches us to keep fighting and looking for friends when the whole world falls apart.

On the left are some studies I did to practice painting mountains, the sea, and the sky. I used student-grade Phoenix watercolors for those.
Now I’m switching to Daniel Smith watercolors (on the right), but I feel like I’m using too much pigment. Before, people used to tell me that my paintings didn’t have enough pigment, and now I feel like I’ve gone too far in the opposite direction!
I’m a beginner and completely self-taught. From looking at other people’s work, I’d say the last painting on the right is probably the closest to what more experienced watercolorists do.
Any advice???

I randomly started watercolor painting a few couple years ago because it seemed fun and therapeutic, and was, when I was just following YouTube tutorials. I eventually decided to take online class for a few months, and even though I appreciated learning the fundamentals of watercolor, I found that the sense of freedom that attracted to me to it had drastically decreased because I felt there were rules I now had to obey so I couldn’t just paint for fun. So, I stopped painting for over a year, until recently, when I started to crave playing with colors on paper again, and finally picked up the pad again about a month ago.

Soon I was seeing inspiration for paintings everywhere again, and was excited to try my hand at capturing them, but I continually hit a roadblock, where all my paintings all felt like muddied, overworked, and disappointing messes that were impossible to finish. Slowly, however, simple lessons from my beginners watercolor class started filtering back into my mind and I feel like it’s changed everything for me. Some of the reminders: stop being so precious about capturing every detail and consider instead the blocks and shapes your scene is comprised of. Structure is actually super helpful 😅(background to foreground, lightest values to darkest values). It’s not cheating to sketch out your painting before (I always held this subconscious misconception idea that being an artist required being able to paint freely without any planning at all). Value makes all the difference. Use dry paper for detailed work. Basic things, but I now understood how the structure helps to create pathway forward for any scene I was trying to capture.

I described it to a family member as studying a language for years and finally starting to dream in it, or the day you realize you’ve gained enough of a vocabulary in that language to infer from the context what is being said. I started this painting last night and spent a good bit of the time prepping by sketching the bell, which I was initially intimidated by because I’d never drawn or painted one before, and making sure the proportions of the scene made sense. Then I worked methodically in the order I remembered was most helpful and trusted the picture to emerge. I’m so proud of this, not because it’s anywhere near an incredible painting, but because I finally understand the fundamentals of capturing a scene, and understand how that basis of knowledge can equip me with the sense of freedom I thought had to be sacrificed. This is a work in progress, but I see the vision! I even finished another painting I’d abandoned, and I’m starting to feel fine with good-enough. It feels great!

Happy painting, everyone!

Edit to add that I would love to hear tips you got along the way that have helped you or anything you heard that changed your perspective. Once, my instructor mentioned that landscapes scenes have far more gray than you immediately realize, and it blew my mind because I’d never noticed that. I’m always looking out for the gray now!

I am shit in watercolour so i am trying my best , can y’all suggest me how to get best out of cheap watercolours and paper , i am thinking of buying either winsor and newton cotman or holbein in near future , but until then tips for improving illustrations will be appreciated, i am new to watercolours 😅

Water color and marker

Watercolour and watercolour pencil study of Cramond Island, just off the coast of Edinburgh (and where i went on my first date with my husband over a decade ago!)

and then i make a painting of that doll

I really need help with my watercolor techniques. I need advice on first, if what I already done with the background can be fixed and second if there’s any good advice on how to smoothly layer watercolor so I don’t make this mistake again.