how to paint with watercolor Archives - Page 2 of 2

January 25, 2018March 6, 2023

Creative freedom and old barn project

Step 3 of barn painting, artistic freedom

Creative freedom and self-care

Creating art is a way to find out how one is able to make creativity, drawing, sketching and painting part of their life and self-care. I recently received many positive comments about my art classes. Parents admitted that the art instruction which is available in our region (Ontario, Durham region) does not actually include learning how to draw or paint. They told that most art classes were rather craft classes which use glue, markers, inks, papers, mixed media and similar. There is a need for projects which involve real drawing, sketching and painting. I am adding to this creative freedom when we make our own choices.

Replacing device with brush and pencil

I have noticed dramatically decreasing attention span and lack of focus due to the overuse of devices in the recent years. The inability to prioritize important things in our life is one more issue because there is too much of everything happening at once. While some people, who have no art creation experience, would assume that art entertainment events with cocktails and food are art classes, I am very sure they are not since such events don’t teach anybody anything. There are also misleading art instruction models. Most of them are designed to please the participants and to make them believe that they are gaining a lot.

Ready product versus process

Most people are interested only in the final products, and they have no interest or patience to learn about the process of getting to this final product. Indeed, we are seeing this frequently. Many venues offer art classes which are half-done product. They supply with paper or canvas with drawing on it, so that the student has to only apply paint on certain spots Most events are a few hours a single night or one day only because everybody is in a rush. Is it possible to master everything within such a small time frame? No, it isn’t. Brushing techniques alone take time to practice, not to mention that colors, values and composition matter. We always observe certain aspects of painting and we must be aware what these aspects are.

Meaningful art instruction

If we want to make art instruction meaningful again and if we want people to really fall in love with creativity and hand-made art, we have to go the long and more difficult way. We have to allow teens and adults, who want to learn, doing so. Having the final product or masterwork done in just a few hours is an illusion. Nevertheless, there are lots of people who believe in that. Final product or masterwork cannot be the only goal. What matters in this case is the journey, the multiple techniques and approaches, the enjoyable path to self-discovery, satisfaction and feeling of fulfillment. The key is understanding the main drawing and painting principles.

Progress of my recent project

The recent project was painting a simple barn while using expressive watercolor washes. Students learned how to blend red and green colors. For that, we require wet-in-wet approach since that eliminates muddy color. We used simple perspective drawing of buildings and fence.

Step 1 of old barn painting, artistic freedom — A few layers are already applied, I start with abstract watercolor washes and define them as I go.

Step 2 of old barn painting, artistic freedom — I keep adding layers and I have also worked more on fence posts.

Mutual experience

I also wanted to make an art class which is hard to learn online: just because the content of this class rests on the presence and the interaction between me, group and everybody as an individual. Perspective is such subject for which understanding the principles is of extreme importance, or there is no perspective. While my photos were not perfect, the painting is correct.

Old country barn landscape — The finished painting, Old country barn, 24 x 20 in or 61 x 51 cm watercolor painting on Saunders-Waterford cotton paper

Reason to be satisfied

Therefore, I am proud that my drawing, sketching and painting classes provide teens and adults with a meaningful art instruction. I make sure that students have tools to enjoy a creative freedom, and they are able to draw, sketch and paint anything they want and the way they would like to. I believe that is different and that works in favor of any student.

And if you live in Ontario, you can apply for my art classes directly here: Art classes

June 18, 2017November 7, 2021

Draw the line: put things in perspective

Purpose of linear perspective in painting

Perspective in art is much easier to implement than perspective in life. In fact, there is nothing much to it as far as we are aware of how it works and what it does for a painting or drawing. Linear perspective creates depth and dimension in any drawing and painting which deals with suitable subject. Traditional linear perspective uses size, overlap of objects and their placement in composition, as well as convergence of lines.

Drawing house — Black pen drawing of simplified 2-point perspective building

Where to use it

If you love landscape, street scenes, rural scenes with farms and barns, simple roads, streams or rivers and so forth, you will need to implement linear and atmospheric perspective because they both contribute to dimension and volume of your painting. You will also use color values accordingly to perspective principles. If you are drawing and painting outdoors, you are most likely applying some perspective already.

Vanishing points and front view

Some people are confused: how many vanishing points to use: 1, 2 or even more? The answer is that will depend on the placement of your shapes and forms on different planes. 1-point perspective uses 1 vanishing point on the horizon or reference line. Horizon line can be called eye-level, but I like to call it reference line. You have to remember that vertical lines are parallel to the sides of your paper (if it’s straight) to make look building stand up correctly. Horizontal line creates 90 degree angle with the vertical line in front view. Horizontal lines of front view are parallel to the bottom and top of your paper. Therefore, in 1-point perspective, the straight lines at the bottom of your building and corresponding lines higher up will always create a 90 degree angle with the vertical line.

1-point perspective in landscape

Most often, we use 1-point perspective with roads, streams, tree and fence lines and buildings on both or one side of a road, that is, with views where something disappears in the distance. That creates an easy perceivable and visually attractive composition which is a breeze to create. In 1-point perspective, all lines which lead into distance, meet in the vanishing point. The front angles of the building on the respective plane are 90 degree angles. It sounds more complicated than it is when you draw it. Start with closest end of the building, drawing a rectangle. Connect the points on one vertical line (in my case the left side where I mark height of any element) to the vanishing point.

Watercolor painting, barn, spring — Pen and watercolor wash of barn, 16 x 12 in or 41 x 30.5 cm

2-point perspective uses respectively 2 vanishing points.

Drawings by Inese Poga — My drawing of neighbor’s house

Plein-air drawing, 2-point perspective. Photo does not show all lines correctly since camera draws the front edge closer. To draw it correctly, vanishing points on reference line are placed outside the drawing. That we do always when the subject is large. I usually draw intuitively since I know where approximately these lines meet and where the vanishing points are. Starting out? Mark up vanishing points on each side and connect with respective points on vertical lines. I teach this all in my private classes because it is simply not easy to describe.

Watercolor sketch, building — Pen and watercolor 2-point perspective sketch, it was mostly done outdoors, since this building is next to my studio entrance.

Many buildings in a landscape or street scene

When drawing close-ups of buildings or placing many scattered buildings in composition, we use rather 2-point (angular) perspective. We use drawing separate buildings most often 2 vanishing points. We adjust the eye level or reference line placement as needed. It can be higher or lower depending on your view. We can move it up or down, and we should use this feature in our favor. That will allow achieving plenty of depth and dimension.

3 vanishing points in one-point or two-point perspective

When some buildings are close, some distant or scattered all around, you could use 3 vanishing points. It does not mean that your drawing becomes extremely complex. It means that you will have freedom to place things in your composition wherever you want them.

Where to place rooftop?

Often, demo drawings that involve 2-point perspective do not explain that the rooftop line runs through one vanishing point. That was also the most confusing part for students since they had a problem placing the roofline where it belongs. Please enjoy the recent paintings and sketches which involve perspective. I will prepare online materials for understanding better how to create linear perspective in drawing or painting.

Perpendicular and parallel lines

The most important aspect is to understand what lines are perpendicular, what parallel, what is obtuse angle, right angle and acute angle. Remembering basics of geometry is really helpful because perspective in drawing is simply achieved once you know how to create it. I am posting some of my recent works that involve creating perspective to illustrate the concept.

Watercolor, perspective, building — Uphill, rural house, size of this painting is 21.5 x 16.5 in or 54.5 x 42 cm

Outdoor painting

Many drawings, sketches and watercolor paintings are done outdoors or plein-air. Perspective is an important part of any painting, sketch or drawing which displays buildings, street views, roads, fences, bridges and similar subjects. Learning how to create perspective is not difficult or overwhelming. You really need to master perspective if you ever do a realistic painting or drawing with buildings and man-made structures.

More about this: Power of line

and how to start sketching: How to start sketching

Visit the online print store:

March 2, 2014September 19, 2021

Advantage of sketching in watercolor

Sketching in watercolor what is the advantage

Reality of sketching

I’m usually advising my students: if you ever would like to learn drawing free-hand and manually, do not use photos, grids and other tools, but only your eyes in addition to paper and pencil. That gives us huge artistic freedom and allows not to depend on camera, printer, computer and photo editing software. That also saves a lot of time. It is more difficult for some people to draw and paint from a real subject initially, but it is like everything else: once you’ve understood how it’s done, the improvement is continuous.

Creating without devices

I grew up and learned painting without any cameras and photos. There was no internet, there were no computers. I suppose, that’s why the number of artists was noticeably smaller, too. In order to paint or draw something, you simply had to use your visual abilities and imagination. I am disagreeing with those who are trying to convince us that everybody was using some kind of camera obscura in the past in order to capture accurate details, proportions and perspective. It’s believed, that mostly amateur artists were using it since they did not have the knowledge and capability of producing good drawings. I know, everybody has heard about Canaletto whose drawings were created that way. Well, there were others, too. Some people can draw and capture everything flawlessly. I am one of them.

Why you can’t draw yet

I find that most people are unable to draw not because they have problems handling pencil and creating the image, but because they don’t know what to look for when they would like to recreate the subject on a paper or canvas. That takes practice and work, that’s all. I love doing drawings or sketches just for the sake of pleasure. It’s so great to see something evolving on a sheet of blank paper. Nothing really compares to this fantastic feeling! That always excites me, and I can spend hours drawing alone while other people are watching TV, for instance. As a kid, I was drawing my garden, street views, buildings and similar simple things. I used to draw portraits of my sister, other kids and later my daughter and my group-mates at the University.

Painting and sketching the easy way

Paintings are sometimes very labor-consuming, especially the large and very large ones. It is simply a lot of work. It can be hard physical work, as well, when handling huge canvas. Sketching with pencil, watercolor and pen is a quick way of capturing the desired view or subject. I do not draw anything tiny because I am trying not to use glasses. Glasses, just like camera can distort the image, and I wouldn’t like that to happen. These sketches were created while travelling, and sizes are between 10 x 12 to 12 x 16 in (25 x 30 and 30 x 41 cm). They were done in about 2 hours.

Advantages of using pen with watercolor

There are many advantages of sketching with pencil, watercolor and pen. First of all, sketching allows to stay focused. It’s like a daily exercise which keeps us in good shape. Our senses stay sharp and fresh, and it’s easier to get back to larger artwork after a break. It is also a great tool to overcome artistic blocks. Just start sketching without worrying about results. We allow our creativity to unfold and follow our imagination and inspiration.

Sketching is the quick way of capturing reality

Sketching does not take much time, it is very relaxing. Many artists and people, who are doing art for pleasure, know that. Lack of time is an ongoing problem. Not everybody is willing to sacrifice their free time only to drawing and painting, but they should. Doing painting and sketching regularly is already an achievement and it will certainly result in better skills. Sketching is very suitable to experience a new subject or style. There are millions of different ways of sketching, and that means: there is something for everybody.

Become a master in drawing

Finally, sketching is crucial for those, who want to master free-hand drawing from live subjects, or to capture a plein-air view. We can learn writing by reading a lot; we can learn many things by just watching how others do them, but drawing is a skill which we can learn only by doing it. The more we draw, the more we sketch, the more artistic and skillful we become. We might get a new approach this way. We also might find a completely new style which works for us. I have always something on my studio desks: flowers, cups, jugs, brushes, paint tubes and similar items. Jars and cups are my favorite still life subjects. I have a large collection of them. I’m already looking forward to spring impatiently because that’s when the true sketching starts. Nature wakes up and takes us outdoors.

Framed sketch: why not?

It is also possible to frame sketches and use them as beautiful art for decorating your space. Sketches can make great illustrations and they sometimes serve as a standalone artwork.

Happy sketching! Please share your experiences with different media and subjects if you have time.

Link to sketching: https://inesepogagallery.com/2018/05/02/how-to-bring-art-in-your-life-start-sketching-and-drawing/

Learn in private: Private art classes

My art prints:

Category: how to paint with watercolor

Creative freedom and old barn project

Like this:

Draw the line: put things in perspective

Like this:

Advantage of sketching in watercolor

Like this:

If you care, share!

Like this:

If you care, share!

Like this:

If you care, share!

Like this: