Harwich Quay - Leisure Painter Project

There is some lively movement in this watercolour...shows promise...you have done well with this..I can't just recall the cabin of the boat, but was it at this angle? Good for you, especially if you have not been painting long,,,keep on going, you will get there but it takes practice. Thank you for putting your work on...look forward to seeing more. Regards.

Slow down, boy! There are nice touches in this, and in your other paintings (especially the water) but stop and think about relative tones and drawing - ie, to take this painting, the foreground boat is pretty good, (though would the superstructure be quite that far forward?) but the one in the background looks rectangular: not a boat that would make much impression on the water. I think your drawing could do with loosening up a bit - practise on scrap paper with a pencil or pen. You've clearly got a good feel for the brush, and colour (I especially like the interesting brown/green of the quayside in this painting), but I believe you need to be planning your paintings a bit more carefully, working out what goes where, and why, how long and taut those ropes would be, how a boat is actually put together to enable people to move around it. I get the impression that you've been overtaken by excitement to put pictures on paper, which is wonderful! But now you've got this far, you need, if I may suggest, to pause and consider what you really want to say. You use the brush very freely, which is excellent, but there are tight touches, rather over-careful and laboured drawing, which is holding you back a bit. If you can loosen up the drawing as you've loosened up the brush work, you will make another big step forward in your progress. Look for the major shapes, sweep them in with pencil or brush, and above all go out and look for yourself - I don't follow the Leisure Painter projects, but if you paint from other people's paintings, they never contain all the information you need and can get from going out for yourself and really looking at a scene you want to paint. Sorry, went on a bit there. Good luck with your work.

I tried this project from the LP. If you want to see what I did with it have a look on the gallery under 'Thea'. I found it very tricky - I am not a total beginner at watercolour having started about two and half years ago and I think I made a hash of it. I think you have a liviness in this painting which is very pleasing. Good water and colours. I am not bothered about the superstructure of the boat as I think accuracy is not necessarily that important - life and vibrancy to me is more important, so is artistic licence. I hear what Robert is saying to you, but disagree somewhat as if you try and get too analytical at the early stages of learning to paint you often tie yourself down and don't paint from your gut feeling. Technique comes with time and experience and you can't hurry that. While your technique is developing, just enjoy having an emotional reaction to the subject and painting from your gut feeling. Hang the rules and restrictions - they just get in the way and can totally paralyse you just at a time when you should just be exploring the excitement of the medium. Like you I enjoy these challenges and I think you learn a lot about the way you paint from them. It is especially interesting when you get to see what others have done with the same scene as well. This painting has a lot of good things about it and the best is the way your enthusiasm shines through the work. Keep going!

Thea and I will fight this one out in the playground, but actually I agree with a lot of what she is saying. I wouldn't worry about technique as such, but still think you would benefit from two things: one, a lot of drawing, and two, going out and looking at things and drawing them: so you could kill two birds with one stone by taking a sketchbook and pencil out with you and just scribble away. You learn a huge amount that way, without even really trying. And it helps to free up your hand; don't strive for accuracy and likeness in things, just draw them and enjoy it.

Thanks everyone for your comments - I certainly didn't expect so many encouraging comments when it was the first time I had submitted something to an online gallery. As a photographer first of all I may get too fixated with accuracy and I will certainly take your suggestions on board.