I painted this a couple of days ago from the YouTube “How to paint a beach scene in watercolour” by Paul Clark Oct 14,2020. Paul Clark is currently my favorite artist to learn from. He posts a wealth of tutorials on YouTube and you can access many from his website as well.

I used some inexpensive paper and paint. Paper: ArtBeek 140 lb Cold Press 9in x 12 in Watercolor Block. Premium, 100% Cotton. (About $0.50 per sheet.) Paint: Mainly Winsor Newton Cotman paint.

Lessons Learned and Notes:

1. I liked Paul’s technique here for the grass. His looked more fresh, more vibrant, more sponteous than mine. Much of that is due to my lack of experience. The budget paper I used seems to soak up the paint too quickly and is not that sturdy. I did use the “score with a dull stick” technique to add some grass-like effects in the wet paint but I have limited success. I believe the inexpensive paper is the main culprit, but perhaps better paint would help too. Doing the scoring as soon as possible after putting the paint to the paper is certainly critical – especially with this paper, but still it doesn’t work like it does for Paul in the tutorial.
2. I covered too much of the first lighter colored grass with the darker grass.
3. I used a No. 1 liner brush for thin grass — but way too thin. I’m ordering a #3 rigger similar to what Paul uses.
4. When doing the sky, I left the top left corner unpainted by accident. I tried to fix it resulting in the blue blob in the upper left hand corner. When doing my washes I need to make sure I make it to all the edges. This paper also gives you little time for doing washes wet on wet and clouds do not blot out well with this paper. There should be some puffy white clouds right on the horizon that show up a little in the actually painting, but are pretty much lost in the photograph. That technique of applying the wash (Cotman Colbalt Blue) and dabbing out the clouds with a paper towel works great with some 140 lb wood pulp paper I use, but not nearly as well with the budget cotton paper I have. The wood pulp paper actually soaks up the paint more quickly, but yet it is easier to lift out wet paint – but you have to be quick!
5. Since I knew the dabbing up of washes doesn’t work well with this paper, I did a couple things differently than Paul did in the tutorial. He did a 90/10 Cadmium Yellow/Alizarin Crimson wash over the whole page – I only did it below the horizon. I did go over the house with the blue wash as Paul did, but I had less success lightening selected portions of the house with a paper towel or dry brush than Paul did.
6. I intend to use better paper and better paint eventually, but for now I want to try a lot of things and don’t want to worry about wasting paint or paper.
7. All-in-all, I learned a lot and it was a really fun painting. I really liked how it turned out, but when you put in next to Paul Clark’s, you can quickly see I have a lot to learn!
8. I could go on on on with things I’d like to try to improve in the painting I did, but it’s time to just try another!

Some Paint Recipes Used in this Painting (Orig Recipes from Paul Clark):

1. Background warm wash – 90/10 Cadmium Yellow, Alizarin Crimson (I won’t keep noting this, but my Cotman paint adds “Hue” to these paint names. That means they have been created to try to match the color of their professional counter parts, but do not even use the same pigments. Also, they tend to have lower pigment to binder ratio. There is a good video on YouTube comparing Winsor Newton Cotman to their Professional Watercolor piants – that was very informative.)
2. Sand: Add a touch of burnt umber to the warm wash (1) mix and a bit more strength.
3. Sky – I used Cobalt Blue. (Paul used 50/50 Coballt Blue/Cerulean Blue. I didn’t have any Cerulean Blue, so this was another reason I didn’t put the warm wash in the sky – I expect he used the Cerlean Blue to cover it more as well since it is more opague included white paint).
4. Sea – sky mix + Cadmium Yellow
5. Shadows in the Sand – 50/50 Yellow Ochre/Burnt Umber. (I think I’m using Reeves Yellow Ochre (I don’t recall when or where I got that) and Susan Scheewe Burnt Umber. Worked OK, but Paul’s paint had a much more elegant look to it.
6. Shadow Side of Huts – 45/45/10 Cobalt Blue/Alizarin Crimson/Yellow Ochre
7. Added Paynes gray to #6 for the roof.
8. Green 1 for grass – 45/45/10 Cobalt Blue/Cadmium Yellow/Alizarin Crimson
9. Green 2 for grass (darker) – more Cobalt Blue and Alizarin Crimson
10. Darker shadow mix under grass in sand – 70/25/5 Yellow Ochre/Burnt Umber/Cobalt Blue
11. Fence – 45/45/10 – Yellow Ochre/Burnt Umber/Cobalt Blue
12. Detail on Huts – Watery Payne’s Grey