This week we wrapped up the Live Version of my Watercolour course. It’s hard to find the right words to express how much I love going through a SketchingNow course with a group and hosting weekly livestreams. I always get so much out of revisiting the concepts explained in the lessons and seeing the successes and struggles of the group. So thanks to everyone who was part of it!

On Tuesday I created this one-page summary of the main themes in the course. This was really fun to put together and now all that I have to do to finish the course is the final exercise. This involves sharing my three takeaways from Watercolour. I have many thoughts going through my head at the moment, but these three are the ones that are standing out for me now.

1. Watery, Juicy, Pasty

I have a renewed appreciation of just how important it is to learn how to consistently mix washes with the right amount of water and pigment. Going through the course again, and doing all those live teaching sessions has made me even more aware when I’m mixing a wash in my palette that I have the right ratio for the particular situation I’m about to paint.

2. Keeping it simple

Reducing the scene to a few big shapes, loading the brush well and then applying the wash to the page in big continuous strokes makes watercolour painting so much easier. (No fiddling!) Reducing the hues and creating simple value contrast are also included in this thought.

3. 100% Cotton paper

Some of you might know that I don’t generally like 100% cotton paper for quick urban sketching (see this article for more details). In Week 1 of the course, as I was doing some simple paintings of a yellow pear, I suddenly realised that there are subjects for which 100% cotton page works for me. 🙂 This is something to explore further.

As it was too hard to stick to 3 takeaways I have one more point…

4. Too many granulating colours?

During the Pigment Lesson, I was reminded that mixing granulating colours can become murky and that led me to think about trying a non-granulating ‘burnt sienna’ type colour. As a result, I swapped out Transparent red Oxide for Quinacridone Burnt Scarlet and I’m loving the change.

To complete my celebration of going through Watercolour again, I want to share with you all the thumbnail images that I created for the weekly livestreams. These are a good summary of the content of the course and all the bonus material I added this time. If you have purchased the Watercolour course at any time you can watch the replay of these inside the Watercolour classroom.

BTW the Watercolour course is still available as a self-paced course that you can start at any time. Find out more here.

It’s a really colourful collection of photos, isn’t it?

What’s Next?

A group is going to be working through the Edges course – starting next week on Wednesday 3 August 2022.

The Edges Course is for people who want to see and think like an artist so that their sketches have greater depth and focus.


Edges picks up on some important concepts from Foundations and develops them further.

• In Foundations we learn how to draw and how to see the world in edges, shapes and volumes.
• In Edges we think about how to make decisions about line and colour.

If you have purchased Edges at any time you can join in – all you have to do is visit the Edges classroom and check out the instructions on the course homepage. I will also be sending you an email next week on the start date with specific instructions.

This is a Group Self-Paced Version of the course – working through the lessons at the same time as others. I’m keeping an eye on the classroom and answering questions but will not be hosting new livestreams. (There are replays from live sessions we had last year available inside the course).

Edges is the perfect course to do after watercolour and before Watercolour On Location. I’ll be hosting a Live Version of  Watercolour On Location later this year – starting on 28 September. But I’ll share more details about that later on.

Finally, another huge thank you to everyone who participated in the Watercolour Live Version. I hope that you enjoyed it as much as I did and have seen a significant improvement in your watercolour sketching.