Watercolor 101

This comprehensive ten-day watercolor workshop provides you with essential knowledge and practical skills to use watercolor effectively and confidently in all your artistic projects. Whether you're creating landscapes, portraits, still lifes, or experimental works, you'll develop genuine proficiency in color mixing, wash application, light-to-dark working methods, reserve techniques, specialized additives, and advanced methods such as watercolor underpainting for creating remarkably realistic effects. The workshop emphasizes both technical execution and artistic development, helping you find your personal style within the medium.

Core Skills You Will Master:

• Watercolor brushwork and technique
• Wet-on-wet painting methods
• Wet-on-dry painting methods
• Watercolor underpainting for depth and dimension
• Portrait painting with watercolors

Ten-Day Detailed Curriculum:

• Day 1: Flat washes and fundamental watercolor techniques. Learn common mistakes to avoid and paint a simple landscape inspired by Voloshin's distinctive style, understanding his approach to light and composition.
• Day 2: Eastern watercolor traditions and aesthetics. Master various brushstrokes and compositional approaches while painting a blossom tree, koi fish, and dragon compositions that emphasize flow and spontaneity.
• Day 3: Combining wet-on-wet and wet-on-dry techniques for varied effects. Create a detailed flower painting using layered approaches that build dimension and suggest natural lighting.
• Day 4: Wet-on-wet watercolor methods for atmospheric effects. Paint a cat using flowing, spontaneous techniques that capture movement and character through minimal, expressive marks.
• Day 5: Classical watercolor with underpainting preparation and planning. Begin a small realistic still life using trompe-l'oeil perspective, learning how underpaintings provide structure for complex compositions.
• Day 6: Complete your still life painting with refined details, glazing techniques, and final touches that enhance realism and visual impact.
• Day 7: Start a realistic portrait. Learn professional tips for painting human skin tones, rendering hair with texture, and capturing expressive eyes and facial features with accuracy.
• Day 8: Finish your portrait, refining likeness through careful observation, adding expressive qualities that convey character, and applying final details and highlights.
• Days 9 to 10: Work on an ambitious final project of your choosing, applying all learned techniques, methods, and artistic principles from the entire workshop to create a polished, exhibition-quality piece.