Watercolour deer

[Enug]

I would love to paint loosely but I can't manage it with oils either.:(

102838

[markw]

Well, I like this one June. Has a lot of charm.:cool:

As for painting more loosely, what sort of look are you wanting?
Any examples of what you are aiming for you could point us at?
I do think sometimes that achieving that elusive “looseness” isn’t always helped by the tool we have to use, i.e the stylus, as it is so like a pencil or pen in form it can tend to steer one towards tighter, more controlled mark making if we let it!
Or maybe that's just my excuse for why my paintings look the way they do!:rolleyes:

[Enug]

Mark, you have developed a signature style in your watercolours. I want to achieve something like the example below but I guess you can't force it perhaps it is something innate in an individual artist?

102845

[markw]

...I want to achieve something like the example... but I guess you can't force it perhaps it is something innate in an individual artist?
I think you may have the right of it there June! and maybe ones painting style actually chooses you and not the other way round!:rolleyes:

That aside though, I do think with perseverance one can become looser.
One thing you can perhaps try while painting is using as big a brush as posible.
Something big enough that it feels almost too big for the area you are working on! So you're only just in control of it and can’t easily get tempted into more ridged or too precise mark making too soon.
Doing practice studies of paintings or indeed just parts of paintings that you like can help a lot. Not with the aim of producing a finished piece (or indeed something that should ever be seen by another living soul!) but just purely to get more familiar with the feel of watercolour.
And don’t forget that in AR some things that just happen with real watercolours actually have to be deliberately worked like; runs, drips, how paint can pool, etc…
Also, (and I may have said this before in other posts?), it’s not just the watercolour brush that we have at our disposal for doing watercolours, but any of AR’s other tools as well. If it gives you the marks and feel you are looking for then it too is a legitimate watercolour brush!
(Although there is one tool that sadly is still lacking in ARV, and that is a flat brush option for the Watercolour brush. It would be my dream addition to ARV, but I digress...)

So do keep working at watercolours June, as I for one can’t wait to see what watery style eventually chooses you!:)