Patchouli Memories: Watercolour painting.

I've recently got back into painting with watercolours again and I'm really surprised at how quick I've picked it back up. I last painted when I was at art college when I was 17, so that was about 16 years ago! I've really been getting the urge to paint again so I went online, searched around a bit and ordered a set of watercolour paints. I got the Winsor & Newton Artists' watercolour 24 paints which were quite expensive but I thought they would be worth it as I was wanting some good quality paints that would last me.....

My paints before un-wrapping the pans.

For anyone interested I have put more photos on my Flickr account of the paint box and paint samples of all the colours: http://www.flickr.com/photos/patchoulimemories. I did this because every web site that was selling these paints all had the same small photo, which was quite frustrating. So I've taken photos of this set to give everyone else a better view of them.

.....So it took me a couple of days to pluck up the courage to have a go at painting something, because as I said its been 17 years. I found a picture of a robin that I thought I'd have a go at and here it is below....

First painting in a long time!

So what do you think? I was pretty happy and surprised at the outcome (minus the feet! I think the look horrendous), but it was my first go and it also took less time than I expected as I'd always been a really slow painter when I was younger.

Ok so at the weekend I decided to have another go at painting a different robin. This time I needed to have a practice at painting some legs and feet first because they are more difficult to do than I thought and I also used a smaller brush (number 0).

Practice at bird feet.

You can see from above what a difference it is from just having a practice first! You can just see the first painting in the top corner of the bird feet (cringe!!)....