Take Three Colours: Watercolour Landscapes

Introduction

When I first started watercolour landscape painting about thirty years ago, I bought many books by well established artists whose work I admired, and tried to copy the paintings, which I think is a good way to learn. However, it meant that I spent a lot of money on dozens of tubes of paint, numerous brushes in different shapes and sizes and packs of different grades and thicknesses of paper. I can see now that all I really needed was a very basic kit and perhaps a bit more guidance. With this in mind, I was delighted to be asked by Search Press to produce a book on watercolour painting designed for the beginner.

Perhaps you have never picked up a brush before, but have admired watercolour landscape paintings and fancied having a go. It could be that you have tried but given up in frustration, or been put off by the cost of materials. The problem of choosing the right materials can, in itself, be a barrier for the beginner. You only have to look at the bewildering array of papers, brushes and paints at your local art shop or online art materials retailer, to ask yourself, ‘Where do I begin? And how much is this going to cost?’

With this book, all you need is a basic kit of three colours, three brushes and a pack or pad of watercolour paper. You can mix all the colours with cadmium yellow pale, ultramarine and light red. It is amazing how many realistic landscape colours you can get from just these three pigments (see page 8). As you build your painting skills, you will benefit much more from learning how to mix and subtly change colours if you work within this limited palette.

You need only three inexpensive synthetic round brushes: a no. 10 (large), no. 4 (medium) and no. 2 (small). You will also need watercolour paper at least 300gsm (140lb) in weight, with a Rough or Not surface. I used an A4 (297 x 210mm/11¾ x 8¼in) pad. This provides you with everything you need to produce all the paintings in the book.

I have over eighteen years’ experience of teaching art and producing and selling original paintings to make a living, but for this book I have reminded myself what it was like to start from scratch. When I was a beginner, I needed to learn the basics but I wanted to produce something I could be proud of. With this in mind, I have chosen subjects that, while they are simplified to make them achievable, are still sufficiently authentic and convincing for you to want to show them to friends and family and maybe even frame them for hanging on the wall.

I hope that the final results you see here inspire you and set you on the road to an exciting and fulfilling hobby.

Using the colours