Embrace the chaos of watercolours

Over the past three years I’ve returned to using traditional media, having spent over a decade painting digitally. I hadn’t used watercolours since college and I have completely fallen in love with them

One of the things I like about watercolour is that it’s impossible to recreate the same effect. If I were to attempt to paint these dragons again from start to finish, they wouldn’t look the same. This uniqueness is very appealing to me. Chaos rules on the paper, and the water and pigment teach you to let go and not be too precious about the outcome. Happy accidents are frequent and sometimes will add beautiful shapes and textures to a painting that you hadn’t necessarily planned.

However, in the same moment you could end up with a ruined painting, but you just take a deep breath and start again