Watercolour In The Dark

This morning I went to the painting lesson and I learned something. No not about watercolour painting, but about the teachers non stop talking. It is wiser to go in the evening since she never shuts up and it totally nerves me! Every lessons she says: Next time you can stay longer since we talked too much (read: she talks and I try to be polite and hint and say if I can say anything at all: Can I start now).

In the morning she is tired meaning two hours is the max and she talks two hours and I cannot even paint for 30 minutes!
She said in the evening it doesn't matter if I stay longer ... this isn't going to work on long term so after I have the payment for the painting I give up on this. It is better for me to paint alone even if I have to keep it on my lap.

I couldn't start something new. What you see underneath I painted mainly in the dark while she kept talking for three hours (how on earth is that possible?) the first time.

I admit it looked better than I had in mind, still I wanted to make some corrections after she showed me the example while that mouth of hers couldn't stop talking.

I used a damp cotton pad to remove some of the green from around the trees. At first, I wanted to make the branches less distinct and apply a slightly darker shade of green. Instead, she gave me a small tube of white paint to cover some of it up. She said the paint would provide good coverage. I didn’t notice much of that, though. I decided to take the whole thing home and leave it as it was.
I can learn even from things I don’t like, and I’ve still got a watercolour canvas prepared. I want to try this out at home before the next lesson. If there is one.

Once home, I tried a few other things.
A cat and a crow on bamboo paper using a charcoal pencil turned out to be a failure. It’s impossible to smudge out.

The cat from the cat café was drawn using Derwent Coloursoft coloured pencils on black paper. And if you look closely, thanks to the light, you can see that I also used the black pencil.

Charcoal pencil: hard + soft











Derwent coloursoft pencils.
I tried to blend the arm a bit with a cotton bud.

If you wonder about the red glow in the photos that is caused by the sun shining through the closed curtains and no better photos can't be taken elsewhere, sorry for that.

Two more hours to go, on to the next projects/try outs.

_5-8-2026