Watercolor painting by
Alina Chekhivska
Alina Chekhivska's watercolor learning experience:
My first experience with water colors happened, as far as I remember, around third grade in a high-school, me being about ten years old. Remember we were taught to draw natural-looking green apples with juicy red sides. That was the only experience until now, when I am already 21 years old. I have always been persuaded that water colors are one of the most complicated media to work with, that's why I didn't make any affords to learn it before. I was so wrong! Since my brush touched the paper, leaving the first stroke, I felt myself a famous artist and was almost overloaded with inspiration. In 20 minutes, a blank paper has turned into a colorful cute little village. It is amazing, but having just three basic colors, a brush, a paper, a little of skills and a lot of imagination, one can create very remarkable (at least for him) piece of art. The class critique is also very important. professor Chen gave to each student strong suggestions about improving of their works, while finding in each piece strong sides and eye-catching details. Personally I've got some recommendations about adding more volume to the painting; also I've learned the lightening technique that really saved too dark and messy areas of my 'village'. Each lesson brings me more useful information to learn, and the most important thing is that the hours I spend in a classroom and at home, are not useless. The acquired skills help me to relax, because I enjoy creating something beautiful, which will stay with me forever and will please an eye of my friends and me.
