I love the shapes, I love the colours. When I’m out for a walk, in the forest or in town, I’m always looking out for it and maybe taking a quick picture.
yellow and grey lichen on a brick wall
So when I sat down to paint the other day, and flipped through the photos on my phone for inspiration, I quickly decided to paint some lichen-y shapes.
abstract watercolour painting of yellow, green and grey lichen
This was fun as it let me do my favourite parts of wet-on-wet, letting the colours mingle and dry however they would. The limited palette brought it together a bit more than when I just use all the colours (though it’s hard not to! I love all the colours). And I enjoyed painting the wibbly shapes and ferny bits of the lichen.
close-up of lichen watercolour art
Today I went on a woodland walk with my eldest and took a few more lichen pictures. So I’m sure more lichen art won’t be far behind.
When I started drawing I mainly used a pencil, then after a while I started working digitally. I liked this when I was learning, because I had an undo button and I could move things about and make changes easily without having to start again or worry about ruining what I’d already done. But at the moment watercolour is my favourite.
The main thing I love about watercolour is how many different ways you can use it. You can work loosely with broad brushstrokes to build up an image.
You can work in layers and gradually build up colour.
You can make paintings that are detailed to the point of photorealism…
…or you can just play with colours and let them run together and see what happens.
There are lots of little things I love about watercolour, too. I love that I can mix up colours in my palette and leave them until my next painting session, just adding a bit of water when I’m ready to use them again. I love the way that watercolour paintings ‘glow’. I love that pretty much every colour washes out (phthalo blue stains so you have to be careful with that one). And I love how portable it is, which is good because I have to paint on the kitchen table so I have to be able to get everything out and put it away quickly!
One of the biggest differences between my crafting now and back when I used to blog is that I can draw now.
It’s something I’ve always wanted to be able to do, like a lot of us I suspect. Then in summer 2014 I was talking to an artist friend, and she mentioned an article she’d seen about how drawing is completely a learnt skill – anyone with enough fine motor control to write their name can learn to draw. You just have to practice. She recommended a book to me – You Can Draw in 30 Days by Mark Kistler (amazon link) – and it must have been just the right time because I bought the book and did the exercises, and then I just kept practising. Not every day, or even every week sometimes, but I kept drawing on and off and filled up some sketchbooks.
Sketchbook pages, 2014
More recently I took out another book from the library – Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards (amazon link). This one is for complete beginners really but I still found some useful things in it. It talks a lot about how learning to draw is really about learning to see, which is definitely what I’ve noticed. I look at things differently now. I notice more. The world is more interesting, landscapes, faces, plants all have more detail. If you want to learn to draw then this book is probably the best one to start with – it’s very encouraging. She compares learning to draw to learning to drive, in that most people can do it, you just have to learn certain things (steering, changing gear, giving way at roundabouts) and after that you have to practice a lot to increase your skills and your confidence.
Sketchbook pages, 2016
I’ve mainly used pencils, colouring pencils and watercolour, and also I draw a lot digitally (I use an app called Procreate on my iPad, originally with a cheap stylus, then for the last year with an Apple Pencil which is incredible). Over the last year I’ve started trying to learn to watercolour Properly, and I’ve painted some portraits and landscapes that I’m really proud of and which I will share in other posts.
Sketchbook pages, 2020
As well as being fun in and of itself, learning to draw and paint has made every single thing I make better. I can sketch out ideas that actually look right. I can see how shapes and edges fit together for the best composition, and I can mix and balance colours. I wish I’d done it years earlier, but starting at 32 was also pretty good.
