Being adamant that I can teach myself how to paint in watercolour, I went searching for inspiration online. I found two amazing and award-winning watercolour artists – Susan Harrison-Tuntain [New Zealand] and Anne Agbott [Canada]. Anne’s work on painting glass inspired me to turn my hand from painting flowers to painting glass. The small candle holders I was using to hold water for my trials were the closest, and handy since they already had H2O in them ready for observation and replication.
When I started experimenting with watercolour, my husband [the “non” artist in our family] suggested it was one of the hardest mediums to master. And yesterday while I was in our local Arthouse art supplies shop, I over heard a customer talking about art classes. I stopped and asked him about watercolour workshops and he too suggested watercolour was hard. Who would have known I would choose the harder of the mediums to learn! I quickly asked the shop owner for information on taking a watercolour class and she suggested Peter Stathers of Berry NSW. Stay tuned on where that gets me.
So, after all that, later that night I painted my first attempt at glass. What a tricky subject this was! There were so many intricate shadings, glows and highlights – I couldn’t get them all in! But I think it’s fair to say, it looks like a glass bowl.
LUISE GRICE 