Story and artworks from Georgiadou Marina

Story and artworks from Georgiadou Marina, Watercolor Academy student

I am a retired English language teacher, coming from an artistic family; my father was an interior decorator and my brother a painter. I was good with my hands but never had the proper teaching to do things correctly and never believed I was as talented as my brother. With my retirement I took up a secondary school course in art works conservation that included copying works of art and free hand drawing, and that opened up an appetite to learn more, so here I am.

I have only just completed the lessons about the watercolour techniques. I haven't tried all of them out, basically because firstly I'm not fast enough to do wet on wet and secondly I'm using a mixed media of watercolour pencils and watercolours. Of course I realize that wet on wet will create better quality tonal values, but I'm not confident enough to try it just yet. However, the course in itself is amazing, starting from little practical things like how to transfer a drawing without the use of carbon paper or grids to the importance of using the correct brush and the use of different types of brushes, a fact that I was not aware of before, I just used whatever brush was handy.

I completed the Drawing Academy course before enrolling in the watercolour course. I understand the tonal values gradation in greyscale but I'm just beginning to experiment with those in colour and I still have a long way to go. I'm not confident enough to go too dark or leave it as light as necessary. I need more time and practice.

You advised me some time ago to avoid copying because that will take me down the wrong path. Obviously you were absolutely right. I do nothing else but copy at the moment. On the other hand, it has only been three years since I started my artistic journey. Great artists had things like perspective and human measurements solved by the time they produced their masterpieces, and I am not an inspired or greatly talented artist. I just want to take joy in whatever I attempt to create and do it as correctly as possible.

I would definitely recommend the course and I have already done so. Not to mention that watercolourists seem to be a cult here. People should realize how fascinating this method of creating art is and what potential it reveals.

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