More watercolours

I think you all will get sick of watercolours long before I do - I have finished Level 1 Absolute Beginners and moved onto Level 2 Beginners via a short Beginners Workshop. Yes, I am forking over lots of cash in lessons and even more in paint, but too bad don't care. I am saving on many other things at the moment, from petrol to restaurants. Not food though, we are buying a LOT of food.

Here is the exercise where we learned dry brushing, which leaves white bits when you put the colour on. It makes good waves.

This is about softening edges to give a rounded effect. You put the colour round the edges then soften it towards the light. My softening is reasonable but the teacher suggested some improvement might be needed in my brush control. Raggedy edges. It seems my lack of precision follows me from craft to craft.

And this one is aerial perspective. Distant things are paler and cooler in tone, warming up as you come forward. And also linear perspective and vanishing points, and how to make a decent grey.

I am doing every exercise at least twice, doing all the homework and trying not to race through it ... but honestly there's not much else to do at the moment! It meant I ran out of the first lot of paint I bought, which has been a saga of delivery. I ordered from Jacksons in the UK which is literally a third of the price for Winsor & Newton than the shop down the road (even including postage) but then had a panic that it wouldn't arrive in time, so I ordered some tubes of an Australian brand from an art shop in Sydney, but they then advised that shipping was taking ages at the moment, so I had another panic and did a click and collect from Officeworks which (weirdly) had that brand too because I thought I could pick it up the same day.... 

Of course the inevitable happened. My package arrived from Jacksons the next day - literally a week after I ordered it (!!!!!), the Sydney parcel arrived two days later despite their fussing, and Officeworks down the road couldn't organise for me to pick it up until yesterday... I could have saved myself the second two orders. But now I have a TRUCKLOAD of paint.