Hi everyone, I'm so happy to be here! 😄 I recently picked up watercolor painting on my train commute to my day job. I had been thinking to myself for the longest time that I wanted to paint again (I used to do acrylic painting as a kid) and I have always loved the dreamy and ethereal effects of watercolor. I then thought, why not turn my commute (usually fairly exhausting and mundane as I commute 2 hours each way) into a fun pasttime, so I went and bought a cute travel paint set (size of an iPhone) that fits perfectly in my backpack and take it out during my commute. I've only done a few so far but I found that it really makes me feel alive and creative again when I'm painting! I love it ☺️💕. The pic with the paint palette is my first one 2 weeks ago, and the one with the hot air balloons is one I just finished now on my commute home 😄

It's useful to remember that the white of the paper is like an extra color and we can use it for highlights, as here for a glass jar or the shine on flowers, the heads of figures, metal on cars etc.

Welcome Bianca from a sweltering London

I,ve added a short item on atmospheric urban scenes and how to go about painting them in watercolor. Btw. in all these courses I,ll be adding material as we go on. I,m really just getting a feel of the platform and trying to get into the habit of regularly uploading something helpful. And it doesn't have to be my paintings, you can suggest reference photos you've taken or your favourite views and we can paint - along over a few days if you like. As I know not everyone has a lot of free time. Hopefully I,ll be showing more of your paintings and just showing mine to demonstrate a technique or to explain something.

Local park scene Here is a painting I did as a demo with my local group here in Ilford. Its of the pond area in our nearby park. The topic was about making use of the white of the paper to depict snow.