5 reasons why watercolour is the best paint medium
So you’re looking for a new creative hobby and you’ve decided a painting class is for you. But you’re not sure what medium to choose. It can be confusing! After all, there are so many different paint mediums to try. There’s watercolour classes, oil painting classes, acrylic painting classes, resin pouring classes and of course, the Artory online art courses …the list goes on. But there’s 5 good reasons why watercolour should be right up there in your list of art mediums to try:
1. WATERCOLOUR IS QUICK
Watercolour one of the only art mediums where you can finish a painting in 30 minutes! It uses the speed of water to effortlessly blend colours and cover large areas with a few strokes. Plus you don’t need to waste time cleaning up, just let your paints dry in the palette, rinse your brush in your water, and you’re done. At the Artory, we offer a watercolour painting for beginners class in Kingscliff on the tweed coast in NSW and watercolour classes online that run for 2 hours. It’s the perfect amount of time to set-up, draw up, paint an artwork and pack up all in one sitting (that’s rare for other paint mediums!)
This gorgeous hare painting is from Anne’s online Grasslands Watercolour Course. It takes 1-2 hours to complete.
2. WATERCOLOUR IS HEALTHY
Watercolour is one of the healthiest art mediums you can use. It’s water-based with no solvents, fumes or harsh detergents involved. You don’t even need to use soap to clean your brushes. While all modern pigments (colours) have some chemical component (particularly the cadmiums), when it comes to watercolour we use such small amounts of pigment that the health risk is minimal (unless of course, you accidentally dip your brush into your cup of tea!)
3. WATERCOLOUR IS SPACE-EFFICIENT
You only need a small space to work from for watercolour. And even the tubes of paint are small! You won’t need heaps of materials either, no big canvases or cupboards full of gels and mediums. All you need is some paper, a small palette, a few paints and a brush or two. Then just add water! It’s perfect for travelling or sitting at home on the kitchen bench. You might even find small watercolour kits at your local art store perfect for watercolour painting for beginners.
4. WATERCOLOUR IS EASY
While using watercolour can seem frustrating at first, if you’re using the right materials and shown the right techniques, it is a really simple and easy medium to use. It doesn’t require complex colour theory (you can just mix the colours on the paper and often it doesn’t matter if the colour is quite right or not). Nor does it require complex mixing techniques. The only tricky part of watercolour is knowing how wet and how dry to make it and once you learn that, it’s smooth sailing. At the Artory adults watercolour class in Kingscliff and in the online watercolour class, I specialises in helping people understand the science of watercolour. I have my own unique terminology and teaching methods that help even complete beginners to properly grasp exactly how wet is “too wet” and how dry is “too dry”. You can get a taste for this in my free online Watercolour Masterclass. Here’s an example of one of the artworks we created in class:
5. WATERCOLOUR DOES ALL THE WORK FOR YOU
When it comes to watercolour, you don’t need to spend hours blending colours and tones. With one simple stroke of the brush and the power of water, all of that smooth shading is created effortlessly for you! Even if you’re terrible at drawing or sketching, you can create beautiful masterpieces just with watercolour itself. You see, the beauty of watercolour is that it is transparent. Colours build up in glazes to create artworks full of depth and light. And for some reason, our eyes are just drawn to that fluid, loose beauty! But of course….I am not saying you should neglect your drawing skills! Drawing is the foundation of every good painting, so if your drawing is letting you down, it is always a good idea to build up your skills with a drawing class, such as the Artory online beginners drawing course or the Adults beginner drawing classes in Kingscliff.
So what’s the verdict?
Well, whichever art medium you choose, I am sure you will enjoy it! Any creative pursuit is well worth the enjoyment, the “me-time” and of course, the artwork at the end! But if I can pass on a teeny bit of advice (biased and all) it’s to give watercolour a try first! It’s easy, clean, space-efficient and fun! And it will give you a great foundation to colour mixing, brush techniques and design ideas that will help you in whichever art medium you decide to go on with.
Anne
