There is a magical fascination about creating with water and watercolour pigment.  Starting with water on the paper, dippig the brush into colour and watching it run into the water inspires my creative juices.

 From watery marks, I visualise shapes that emerge with negative paitning, and I see images of flowers and leaves from light and dark areas on my paper.  I guess I have always been able to imagine a "finished look" from visualising of wwhat a room would look like with certain furniture etc to the final look of a garment when I am choosing material.  

With my watercolour painting, the excitment of creating something like the picture in my imagination from the marks I see is the challenge!

Isabelle

Watercolour, the beauty and transparency showing emotion, passion and spontaneity.  All been said before, but in all this there is still the need for some planning.  Thought process before you begin on just how you want to present all this beauty of vision to the viewer.  
Method may be impressionistic free watery making the best use of water and pigment, letting water take its course, but still a need to have some plan, how to start, what palette to use, where is the light source, what tone for the darks to show the ligth.  All has been said many times before by all master watercolourists but that is how it is.

With a new watercolour painting, I find an excitement of creating a fresh vision of something that has taken my eye. Perhaps the light has touched the petals of a startling flower; has glittered on a glass vase or created a dramatic shadow on a table top. It may be the sunshine through the trees or shadows across an alleyway. Whatever the scene that I wish to express, as well as the spontaneous desire to capture this quickly. I find there is still a need for some planning.

My thought process questions how I wish to paint the subject:

 With detail in part or quite impressionistically, or perhaps a combination of both!

Do I want to paint traditionally using wash on dry paper, or work wet into wet perhaps soaking my paper first.

I reflect on:

the amount of, or little, drawing that is required for the subject

 the light source and the consequences from that, shadows, reflections

my palette; colours; tones

the emotion and passion that I feel about the subject, and how I convey that to the viewer.

With all this in mind, there is an urgency to put brush to paper.........time to begin!!

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