Experiment and experience

Experience is key when working with watercolor, and the more you experiment, the more feeling you get with the materials. Take time to get familiar with the way your paper absorbs water and paint; experiment with brush sizes and with mixing colors. You will find that even though water flows where it wants to go, you will still be able to create beautiful effects. Allow yourself to make mistakes, because this is the easiest and fastest way to learn this technique and it's fun! If it goes 'wrong': lighten up! Mistakes often lead to great unexpected results.

Getting to know the materials

I use Chinese brushes, a thin refill pencil, watercolor paint in cubes and several kinds of ink (fluid Indian ink and Japanese ink sticks). I prefer watercolor blocks, but I also use watercolor tubes and watercolor pencils to create special effects. I paint on heavy smooth white drawing paper and I use small strips of paper as a painters palette. I use a simple piece of paper cloth to absorb spilled water or paint. Read more about the materials I use here.

Paint what you LOVE

I follow a few simple 'rules' once I have decided to start painting, maybe they can help you too.

The most important thing you need to do is to choose something you really LOVE. Ask yourself what it is about your subject that you love so much. For example the elegance of a butterfly wing, or it's color.

The second 'rule' is to make that lovely characteristic appear in your painting. So if you want to paint a beautiful elegant butterfly', open yourself to the energy of love and elegance and feel it in your heart while you are painting. This way that energy can end up in your painting.

Step by step

When you are new to water coloring, at first you will have a lot of questions. What paint do I need to buy? What paper do I use? How do I know that I am on the right track? What do I need to do next? So when a Dutch publisher approached me to write a book about my Zen watercolor technique, I leaped at the opportunity as a way to help people to get started,.

Besides several chapters on paints, coloring pens, different kinds of paper,  there are also 25 step-by-step exercises showing you exactly what I did in each step. From choosing the right colors to adding paint on the right spots it is all there. You can find the book  in my books section.

Painting a kingfisher

If you want to have an idea of how I work, take a look at this video of a kingfisher painting that I did. It took me about 30 minutes to paint in reality. If you look closely, you will see that I work in layers: sometimes I work 'wet on wet' (new paint layer flows on the wet first layer) and sometimes I work 'wet on dry' (the  new layer will not flow on the dry first layer). More videos can be found on my Youtube channel.