Welcome to Line and Wash Essentials: Planning and Composing Your Painting. In this class, we will be going through the essentials of what underpins a beautiful painting. Without knowing how to design and plan your painting, you're flying blind. I'll walk you through all the techniques you have at your disposal, and when to know which ones to use.

Understanding the steps and processes required to piece together a painting is crucial. Believe it or not, painting begins even before you put your brush to paper! We will do a variety of exercises that will build your confidence in knowing what colours to use and at what time to use specific techniques. I'll go through my 7-step process that will ensure you end up with a painting you're proud of.

The process in summary:

Choose a suitable scene or reference photo
Identify the light and dark areas - Squint!
Select the compositional and design elements you want to include/exclude. This also means thinking about perspective. You may need to alter the light source and shadows. Or change the colours. This is a tricky step and I'll talk about this more while we complete our projects together. I learned through trial and error and through some theory - the rule of thirds, odd-numbered subjects.
Sketch in pen or pencil
Paint the light
Paint the shadows
Paint the darkest areas and highlights

Other topics covered in this class include:

Water consistency/Colour mixing
Understanding values and colour
Brush control
Techniques: the 2 essential techniques to know in order to layer effectively
One Point Perspective crash course
Composition
Building confidence
Handling mistakes, Self-limiting thoughts
Building resilience, persistence
7-step Unique watercolour painting process
Putting everything together to complete a painting

I'm excited to get started, so let's get painting!

Included Demonstrations:

Amel Arbi

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