Here’s why I woke up at 3am for a Watercolour Drawing Class
I got my stuff ready the night before, had my dinner and slept, so I could wake up for a 3am Drawing Class, Let me explain!
What is the GUT?
The Grown-Ups Table is the best place to hang out with creatives on the internet. Here’s how
describes it:“The Grown-Ups Table is a subscription-based weekly DrawTogether class for adults. It’s sort of like long-distance art school, except everyone is super supportive, and Wendy teaches whatever the heck she feels like. Class is delivered once a week directly to your inbox, and the community gathers online to share our work and encourage one another. It’s kind of the best.”
Last week at the Grown-Ups Table, we had the first ever live Zoom with like 20 pages of Zoom people heads. It was a blast, there was dancing and good vibes and a painting class.
Wendy promised to teach us 6 watercolor painting techniques, but accidentally taught us 7. Unless you count blowing then that’s 8! My notes offer a snapshot of what the techniques are. My faves are LIFTING, DRY BRUSH, and Dragging.
This is what I painted during the Zoom using each of the techniques.
The thing I brought to the piece which is uniquely my own is ‘coloring outside the lines’. That’s my technique. I find that if you stop near the edge you kill the energy of the stroke, so I go over, then figure out later how to get a nice edge.
Normally that means painting over the overpainted parts or cutting the illustration out.
I don’t typically paint in watercolours although I do enjoy it recreationally, but since my day job involves a lot of drawing and painting, I figured my hobby should be something different.
So why take a watercolor class if it’s nothing I won’t use for work?
I’m interested in how artists work and why they work the way they do, so these were the things I looked out for and I wasn’t disappointed.
One thing artists struggle with in the beginning is figuring out a Style. And during the class, Wendy shared what she thinks style is.
“Style is the combination of techniques that you do” - Wendy MacNaughton
As Wendy was describing how she worked she also said; “I don’t really care about doing it ‘right’ right now.” Further illustrating that style is what you DO, not what you KNOW.
Wendy just taught a class on how to do watercolour the ‘right way’ and then proceeded to do it, her way. I think there’s a premium for work that is done by people who know the right ways well enough to teach, but then selectively choose to do it their own way.
GUT is 1 Year Old.
That means if you dig into the achieves you will find 1 Year of weekly lessons and assignments that are suitable for all abilities, and taught with Wendy’s abundantly generous spirit/style.
You will also meet a bunch of artists and learn from them. One of my goals this year was to keep up with the weekly assignments, but I’ve fallen short.
But that’s okay, I’ll go back to them and do the ones that speak to me.
One of the classes I did last year, inspired me to make some work that I put on Instagram which resulted in a publisher reaching out to me to illustrate a book. Who knows what results the little efforts we make to grow can bring?
I normally share 3 ideas in each newsletter so here they are:
Have a hobby that’s different from your day job
“Style is the combination of techniques that you do” - Wendy MacNaughton
Style is what you DO, not what you KNOW
P.S: A MAP of my JOURNEY to become A PICTUREBOOK ILLUSTRATOR
Or, How I became a picture-book illustrator in 35 steps. Over the past 2 years, I’ve written 700 newsletters that talk about or elude to the different aspects of my particular journey of becoming a picturebook illustrator. But when you break it down there were only 35 steps, here they are:
This is so cool — I appreciate your notes. I love watercoloring (writer, not an artist, so I’m not very good haha) so I gobbled this one up:)
So wonderful! That class was very fun. I’m excited for the next one.