If you have purchased a Universal Art/Studio box it should have come with a few sheets of watercolor paper inside. Using suitable tape (masking is best) tape a sheet down on the easel(s) as below.



Failing this just tape a piece of paper onto a suitable surface for know - thick cardboard, piece of plywood, rest it on a couple of books to get an angle of around 35 degrees.

Now draw a pencil line about 2/3^rd of the way down, to form the horizon.

Next for the exciting bit, mixing a little paint. Squeeze a little Ultramarine Blue about the size of your finger nail onto a palette or old white plate, repeat this with around the same amount of Neutral Tint or Paynes Grey. Now for the delicate and most difficult thing adding the water. Dip a flat one stroke brush (as discussed above) into clean water and tap the brush once to remove excess water. Make a nice pool of both colors.

Load the brush with color then using one stoke at a time paint across the top part of the paper using the Ultramarine, clean the brush and repeat below the pencil line this time using the Neutral tint/Grey.

Initially it will look a bit streaky bits may be a bit pale, the texture of the paper might show through. Good, don’t worry all these bits will dry back and add to the effect. Let these two washes dry, then using a darker wash of the Neutral Tint create Hengistbury Head (the left hand hillside) using the No6 round brush. Follow the horizon line with this wash similar to the example above, let everything dry.

At this stage you have you first watercolor using two color washes and two brushes. And if you ever get the chance to visit Christchurch Harbour you’ll feel really pleased with yourself. Put a mount (map frame in USA) around it to transform your effort into a brilliant first picture.

Ok so lets add a little more interest, water usually needs a boat on it. It might be a good idea to practice on a bit of spare paper first. Try out the boat as below, its basically two blobs of the blue/grey tint mixture with a thin line for the mast. I’ve also added a little rigging using a fine drawing pen but a rigger does the same job.

After practicing a couple add to your painting something like this. Tip – make the mast at least one and a half time the length of the boat! The ones above are really too short.

 

Getting the hang of it?

Right lets add some foreground, squeeze the same amount of raw sienna onto a clean part of your mixing plate or palette and lay a wash using the No6 brush so it resembles my effort below.

 

  As you can see we are gradually building up the picture by “laying” washes, the wonderful thing is as an artist you never quite know just how things will turn out. You invariably get happy accidents along the way that just from standing back and looking at will enhance things and form staging points for additional details. The Raw Sienna wash above for example has lots of places that indicate shadows created by the depth of the shoreline, bits of stones, etc all of which you can utilize. From the above picture as a final touch I’ve decided to add some green to form grassy patches and bushes. So that I keep the palette of colors simple  add a little of the Ultramarine using the No6 brush to the edge of the Raw Sienna to form a green mix and add a simple wash similar to below.

Try to use the brush on its side, remember you pay good money for brushes not to just use the pointed bit!

If you’ve got this far with me then we are at the stage where the tendency is to start to fiddle with the painting, this is the stage where colors turn to mud and you’ll start to lose everything.

Every watercolor artist comes to a stage in the painting thinking is it finished? Can I add anything else? Well most artists will say that if your not sure then the painting is probably finished. The best thing is to set yourself a mental target of what want to achieve, simple sketches before starting to paint will help this, and stop when all the basic components and the focal point of the painting is achieved.
You are NOT producing a photographic facsimile of the scene, you can use that expensive camera gathering just on the shelf for that. The best watercolors tend to be those that are created with fewest compositional components and a limited palette.

If you feel at this point you want to add additional detail to your first painting it is probably best to clean your plate or palette first. Not a problem as you have only used 3 colors so can add fresh clean elements to the painting. In my example I want to add a few dark areas to the Hengistbury headland and tone down the boat a little, but will use a clean palette. I think its important to maintain the freshness of the paint after all it wasn’t cheap.

One final tip is to remember the term “soften down”. While you're painting detail like shrubs, boats and the like try not to give them hard edges and blend them down using the brush dipped in clean water.

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