Ask Thomas W. Schaller what holds most watercolor painters back, and his answer might surprise you. It’s not technique. It’s not talent. It’s fear — specifically, a fear of the two things that make watercolor what it is: water and color. His advice? Use more of both.
Here are two fundamental truths about the medium he’s learned over decades of painting that can save you from unnecessary moments of frustration, doubt, and discouragement.
1. Embrace the fluidity of the medium. (I mean, water is in the name.)
“In all my years of teaching, I’ve found that painters are afraid of two things more than anything else … water and color.
“I encourage students to use a lot of each. Dump them onto your paper and see what happens. Play around with gravity — tilt your painting, raise your easel, move your surface around.
“There are a million reasons watercolor is such a fantastic, satisfying, magical medium, but its fluidity is its greatest strength.”
2. Don’t try to “master” watercolor. It’s always a collaboration between the artist and the medium.
“With watercolor, you just have to accept the fact that it is always, to some degree, going to be in control.
“I think of working in watercolor as a collaboration — between me, my skills, my inspiration, and the medium itself. If you try too hard to control it, you’ll get into trouble. Your work will look too tight, contrived.
“I think my best watercolors are those where I have a plan, exert a bit of control to see it through, and embrace the inevitable ‘mistakes’ that turn out to be good — ‘happy accidents’ as Bob Ross called them.”
Thomas W. Schaller brings the same spirit to teaching that he brings to painting — generous, searching, and genuinely invested in helping artists take their work to the next level. He’ll be teaching the pre-convention watercolor workshop at the Plein Air Convention & Expo on May 14.
