Life lessons from watercolouring

Towards end of last year, I attended the solo exhibition of my art teacher from school. He held the art exhibition in conjunction with his 80th birthday. Whilst there, he encouraged me to start drawing again - as he remembers that I always enjoy doing it. So, after a 35-year absence from art and with his words of encouragement, I decided to pick up a new set of paints and brushes.

In school, I was taught drawing still-life using pencils. This time, I decided to try using a different medium – watercolor. I chose this medium partly as a result of an inspiring conversation with a business associate, whose father is a well-known watercolor artist, and partly because of the beautiful transparent nature of watercolor.

Soon after I started working on my first piece, I learnt that watercolor was going to be a far more challenging medium than I had initially anticipated, though it taught me a few things about life:

1. The transparent nature of the medium means that it can be easy to lose control of color. Just like in life; there are many grey areas and things are always "fluid" - i.e.. constantly changing, be it in our personal lives or our work and studies. If we do not guard ourselves and exercise discernment, we can easily lose direction and lose control of what is going on around us.

2. When I first started painting using watercolour, I was told by many experienced artists that I don’t need to buy a wide array of different colours, which made me wonder why. Before long, I realized that so long as I have the primary colors of red, blue and yellow, I can create many other colors and shades. For example, purple is created by mixing red with blue. and orange is created by mixing yellow with red. And if I need a darker shade of purple, I just need to add more blue to the mixture.

Just like in life, we can sometimes get caught in the trap of thinking that we don’t have enough resources to achieve our dreams. Never let the situation limit your aspirations. Make use of whatever gifts and materials you have and make the best use of them.

3. One of the water color techniques I was taught to paint a blue sky is to apply the wet-in-wet technique. On my first attempt, I found that I did not apply enough water on the paper. As a result, the clouds and the sky did not “flow” well enough, and the sky that I painted become very patchy.

Subsequently, I learnt that not only is applying the right amount of water important, but also, applying the paint at the right moment can be just as critical. If you apply paint when the paper is shiny wet, the colors will spread over the large area of your painting, producing undefined shapes. If you need to make a soft, but not overly diffused brush stroke, you must wait until the surface is no longer glossy, but still damp and cool to the touch.

Just like in our lives, doing the right thing at the right time is always important.

4. Moreover, beyond just being able to do the wet-in-wet technique, it is also one that I would need to master. The results produced by this technique are magical. The way colors flow and blend with each other, creates a beautiful, striking effect.

Yet, this technique is a challenge to get to grips with, because the results can be unpredictable. So many factors matter in producing the desired effect, be it paper texture and weight, the amount of water applied, the thickness of pigment or the timing.

Just like in our lives, we need to continuously work on ourselves and push ourselves into different experiences and circumstances that challenge our lives. The outcome could be different from what you expect, but you need to accept the undesired outcome and continue practising the strokes and technique until you master them.

5. “Overworking” in the watercoloring process can be a real problem. When watercolor dries, it lightens up and appears pale and faded. Often, I would love the way my painting looks when it is wet. However, whenever I would walk away for a break and come back, the look had been lost, and the colors seem pale and dull. I remind myself that bumping the colors up a bit while it’s wet will help, but that can be hard to do, for when wet, it may appear too harsh.

Just like in life, it is always difficult to strike a balance in everything that we do, and we always have to pause and reflect.

6. When I finished painting my first piece, my art teacher commented that I have “cauliflowers” on my painting. This is the first time I’d heard this term It refers to when the paint smudges and creates a muddy look, the resulting effect of has the appearance of a cauliflower.

A muddy look could also happen when the layers of color blend together, causing the colors to mix into an unattractive new color. This occurs because watercolor re-hydrates with each new layer that you apply. This makes all previous colors wet again and mix together. To keep your watercolor paintings looking clean and pure, the fewer washes of overlapping color you apply, the better.

The picture above is a landscape I drew two months ago. As it is one of the first two pieces that I painted using watercolour, you can see lots of flaws in it if you look closely - flaws such as ‘cauliflowering’, overlaying of colors, etc. Nonetheless it is, in my view at least, still a beautiful piece if you view it from afar.

Just like in life, we have lots of flaws and shortcomings. So long as we continue to work on the negatives, we are beautiful in the eyes of our creator, our parents, and all those who love us.

The above are the life lessons I learnt from watercoloring in the last three months. I am sure I will pick up more life lessons as I continue my journey.

By embarking on a new painting medium, I realize that it helps me look at life differently and learn how to overcome challenges creatively.

#change