We have a wonderfully talented student on the Watercolour Diploma Course at the moment. She is working with tutor Steven Hersey and he is helping her refine her techniques. Steven is very impressed with her work and said …. “I think her work is superb, with a genuine watercolourist’s skill in producing some technically brilliant pictures. I have been thoroughly impressed”.
Nelli said on the last assignment…
Thank you for your e-mail and encouragement again! I think, your words gave me more confidence and I am happy to paint more out of my comfort zone and just have fun with watercolours!
Nell Begg
We are thrilled to know that Nelli is enjoying her course and we hope that you enjoy viewing her work below.
Toys on the windowsill. They are placed in front of the brightly lit window. I used warmer colours for the lit parts and colder for the shadows. I left some white paper to create the effects of the sunlight on the toys. I worked mostly wet in wet, to get the shapes of teddies soft and fluffy. The scene behind the widow is also wet in wet. I used some dry brush on the big teddy to create more fur.
I wanted to depict clear crispy sky and lots of snow, as we are approaching Christmas. I decided to keep a limited palette for this painting, mainly blues, a bit of cadmium red and naples yellow for the glow in the sky. When I tested the colours, I felt, the painting lacked the warmth. So I introduced burnt sienna in the houses and the fence.
I used wet in wet in the sky, distant bushed and trees and some of the snow. I tried to keep the whiteness of the paper for the snow, on the trees I used a bit of white gouache in the end. The sun is coming from the right. There is quite a strong contrast between the sunlit areas and the shadows.
We went to Manchester with my son last week and I took this photo of him. I changed the scene slightly, omitting the details of the buildings and people. I decided to make the boy a focus of the painting. I used some of the negative paining techniques making shadow to the left quite dark. I left the whiteness of the paper for the sun, as it is the brightest point in the painting. The boy stopped and is looking ahead at the sun, while city is busy with bustling people and cars around him.
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