Learning Watercolors at the University of Edinburgh

Recently we had a visiting artist, Darren Woodhead, come in to conduct a watercolor workshop with the MA and MFA Illustration students. Hard to believe that in my entire art career, I'd never had a watercolor lesson. Wow, what a good one to start with! Darren is amazingly talented. You really need to have a look at his website before reading more.      Darren started us off with just one color in a limited palette. I learned so many seemingly simple things, like working with tube paint, how much water to mix with the pigment, what sort of paper to use. Darren brought in skulls and a large stuffed heron named Patrick for us to render.      Darren talked a lot about the simple nature of watercolor and how ironic it is that it's one of the hardest media to master. (He doesn't feel like he has - HA!)
     There were lots of sighs of frustration as we all struggled to create something we were happy with. Catherine took to it pretty easily.
     Nadee and Chiho did too.
     I must admit, though, I was one of the sighers. This is the only piece I was moderately happy with.      To a non-illustrator, it may seem silly to become so angst-ridden over the ability to apply paint to paper, but that's what we're all about and it means the world to us!
      Darren was a great teacher as we took on this great challenge. And this was only the first day. Wait until you read about our plain-air exercise next week!