What Is My Skill Level?
Knowing where you are tells you where you are going, and what you have to do to get there
Determining your artist skill level is not as simple as it seems.
It is common to describe oneself simply as a Beginner or perhaps Intermediate artist. While these are convenient descriptors each actually represents a wide range of skill and ability.
For that reason, they are not so helpful when it comes to having an objective sense of where you are, skill-wise.
When you are an aspiring watercolor painter, it is even more difficult since it is a unique medium the requires unique handling.
Honest Self-Assessment
Knowing your skill level requires an honest self-assessment. Sometimes we confuse the length of time we've been painting with progress in skill.
The fact is that there is a wide difference in skill development over time from one person to the next. Some acquire skill and accomplish a great deal in a very short amount of time. For others, progress and skill development takes quite alot of time, effort and experience.
For a watercolor artist, assessment of your skill level must be based on skill and abilities in areas that are specific to watercolor as well as to painting in general. At a basic level, this includes competence with the important basic watercolor techniques, an ability to manage its fluid nature, and inclusion of basic composition ideas in your work.
Beyond these basic skills, there are other skills that have less to do with paper, brush and paint, and more to do with color, composition and personal expression.
The Artists Journey
The artists journey through various levels of ability is often described in terms of stages, each defined by the level of skill in specific areas.
The information below is designed to help you get a good handle on your current skill level. It also offers a guide to developing the abilities and skills that will help you progress through the more accomplished stages of watercolor painting.
The Four Stages
At this level, you are new to watercolor painting.
Everyone starts here.
Concentrate on mastering the basic techniques. Its expressive, fluid nature makes watercolor so compelling - make friends with it!
Stage 1 : Beginner
Almost Everyone Is Here
〰️
Almost Everyone Is Here 〰️
It’s exciting to get here because your progress from beginner is apparent.
You may spend a lot of time at this Stage because there is still much to learn. Many aspiring artists arrive here but never progress beyond.
Stage 2 : Advanced Beginner - Intermediate
This is what most people aspire to. It is not easy and a real accomplishment!
The artists whose works are widely exhibited and admired - both living and dead - managed to reach this stage.
Paintings by artists at this stage seem as if they were done effortlessly and express subjects supported by individual style.
Stage 1 : BeginnerStage 3 : Advanced Intermediate
Getting here is so gratifying because it means your commitment to learning has really paid off.
At this point it is the small technical things and the larger ideas - idea, inspiration, and expression that determine progress.
Stage 4 : Advanced
Skill Levels Defined
With Goals And Helpful Hints To Get You Through And On To The Next Level
Stage 1 : Beginner : Everyone Starts Here
Description :
At this level, you are new to watercolor painting. Everyone starts here. These habits, experiences and results are typical for someone new to the medium:
Most of your paintings are considered unsuccessful. In contrast, the successful outcomes seem to be "accidents". It is difficult to produces successful work time after time.
Most of your work are copies - of other artists paintings; of photos and photo references, or instructor-led painting projects.
Little attention or consideration of overall composition or deliberate color choices.
Many of your paintings look 'washed out', ‘muddy’, streaky or lacking in unity
If this it where you are, the following list of suggested goals will help you focus on the skills that will get you to Stage 2.
There is also a list of helpful tips. Include these in your practice to make your progress even faster.
Goals:
Learn the important basic watercolor painting techniques : wet-in-wet, dry-in-wet, drybrush and lift
Learn to use them intentionally and for effect.
Learn how to get strong color even in the wettest of washes.
Water plays two roles in watercolor painting : it is the medium which makes it essential for getting paint onto the paper; it is also our 'white', since it both lightens and lowers the intensity of the paint, like actual white paint in other media. Learning to use plenty of water AND plenty of color is an essential skill for the watercolor artist.
Learn to work with rather than fight against the fluid nature of watercolor.
It is this characteristic that makes watercolor paintings admired for their loose-feel and luminous glow. At the same time, it is the most difficult challenge faced by everyone when learning watercolor painting.
Learn To Draw
For the representational artist, this is a fundamental skill. All to often it is lacking in aspiring artists.
What Will Help
Quality materials!
Professional grade paper, paint and good quality, large brushes will make everything sooooo much easier. Painting materials are not cheap, but they are an investment in yourself. They offer reliable consistency that cheaper materials don't. It means you'll have one less thing to think about when you are trying to master the all-important basic techniques. (check out my basic watercolor painting materials guide).
Limit Your Color Palette!
At this stage, it's easy to be excited by every new color that comes along, maybe offered by that artist friend that swears it is the 'secret' to success, or by an instructor with their particular color palette, or just by the sheer number of bright, beautiful colors available in any art supply store. You are more likely to become a color expert with a well developed eye when working with a limited set of colors. Stick with the tried and true hues - learn their character, how they look and work, and how they mix with others.
Get to know the colors you have on your palette.
Simple color charts, mixing exercises, and brush technique practice all build color knowledge and make it easier to make color decisions while painting.
Learn Basic Color Theory.
Basic knowledge of a traditional color wheel based on three primary colors along with simple color schemes helps get the best from a limited color palette.
Stage 2 : Advanced Beginner - Intermediate
MOST EVERYONE IS HERE
Description:Everyone starts here!
Description: This is an exciting step in your painting development because it means you have accomplished a great deal.
One important thing to remember - you may spend a lot of time at this stage because there is still much to learn, bad habits to un-do, and in-grained ways of thinking to change. Many aspiring watercolor artists arrive here but never progress further!
Progressing from Stage 2 to Stage 3 can be a long journey.
Typical markers of watercolor artists at this stage:
You have an uneven grasp on basic watercolor techniques - sometimes they work well and seem easy, other times you still struggle with effect and result.
Most of your paintings are still considered unsuccessful, but even those have successful parts.
It is likely that you still don't completely understand what exactly contributed to either successful or unsuccessful results
It’s likely you are still doing a lot of copying - from photos and other artists
Paintings suffer from one or more of these conditions : still seeming washed out, looking 'flat' or sometimes having too much color.
If this is you, there are suggested goals to help you focus on developing and adding skills to your repertoire.
Including the helpful tips will make your progress even faster.
Goals
Put as much time as you can into practicing, painting and exploring the medium.
These "brush miles" will grow your technical skills and reveal stylistic tendencies.
Make Time - our lives are busy with much of our time already committed. Itmakes it difficult to “find time “. You will have more success and make more progress if you make and keep a regular schedule.
Develop a sketching habit. A regular sketching habit has many benefits, mentioned in the point about painting from direct observation, below. Apropos of the previous point, it is also one of those things which is best to 'make time.'
Expand your skill and develop your style by finding ways to combine those basic techniques to achieve a more sophisticated professional look.
Some of this will happen naturally as you put in 'brush miles' and become more comfortable with the techniques
Learn basic composition and develop a painting process that includes composition studies as a part of the 'pre-painting' process.
This takes conscious effort because the act of composing a painting means abandoning the 'literalism' that is such a part of our human experience - the mental shift required is a difficult one.
Find a way to incorporate more neutral colors and darker values in your paintings.
Look at paintings you admire. Most paintings are dominated by neutral, rather than bright, colors. These neutrals help unify the composition and allow the relative few bold colors to really sing. Darker values are essential to paintings, especially when we want to reveal light.
Paint from direct observation as much as possible.
This one change in painting habit will make more of a difference in your painting than almost anything else you can do at this point. Observation skill is critical to the artist and is like a muscle, the more it is exercised, the stronger it gets. In addition, you'll start to build a mental encyclopedia of objects that can be accessed as you develop ideas and subjects for painting. You can work from observation by setting up simple 'still life' subjects and painting from those, attending life drawing/painting sessions, and painting landscape scenes "en plein air".
What Will Help
VALUES, VALUES, VALUES!
It's a hard lesson to learn and accept, but paintings succeed or fail almost entirely on the strength of the composition. The arrangement of large compositional shapes and the value relationships between them determines the success of the work. Train your eyes to be sensitive to value now. Make or buy a nine or ten step value scale! This is one of the most useful tools you can have at this stage of learning how to paint.
Honest Feedback & Critique
It's also a good time to seek out honest feedback on your work. The members of a local art group is one place to look. Perhaps you know a skilled working artist who is willing to offer feedback and advice. Friends and family are generally not the best place to find the most helpful advice since they are likely to be more interested in boosting your confidence and also may not really be in a position to properly evaluate artwork.
Studio Space
Getting started is always the hardest part of painting. The barrier is greater when painting means unpacking stored materials and setting up to paint. The best remedy is to have a studio or dedicated 'studio space' where your materials and supplies are always ready to go. Most of us don't start don't start out with our own studio. But, even in the smallest of living spaces, there is usually a part of one room or another that can be dedicated to your art. Watercolor is a great for smaller studio spaces because it doesn't require a large, space-eating easel or space to store canvases. Paint, palette, brushes will all easily fit on the surface of small table.
Stage 3 : Advanced Intermediate
Description:
Description: At this stage, you can see your hard work paying off. Most likely you've reached the point where you are able to plan for and anticipate your results. Your personal style and preferred subject matter have emerged and are evident even from the paintings that might otherwise seem unsuccessful.
Technique has become second-nature and you apply the right technique without thinking almost every time.
Your painting has become more economical - the first wash or mark is the only one needed. Once dry, shapes and passages require much less layering and adjusting.
Preliminary sketches and studies are a regular part of your painting process.
You've begun to discover a language in color and are finding ways to employ it with purpose.
A much higher percentage of your paintings are successful. If you are submitting to juried exhibitions, a much higher percentage of submissions are accepted.
If you are here, incorporate the suggested goals. At this stage it is the small things that make the biggest difference.
The following helpful tips will go a long way in focusing your practice.
Goals
Expand your knowledge and develop you skill in composition.
There are endless ways to compose any particular scene or subject. You have accomplished much in that area to have gotten here. Continue the work by considering composition as an activity with and result that is and end in itself - outside of the subject it is to represent.
Learn to work with the character of the medium.
Watercolor is uniquely expressive when allowed to use its voice. Loose fluidity is the essence of this medium. Continue to explore the possibilities in combinations of technique and brush work
Dive Into Color
"Color" is the final technical frontier for most artists. A basic understanding has gotten you this far. A broad and deep understanding of this complex discipline will provide you with a sophisticated color language that will support more expressive paintings. Make it a point to delve deeper in to color theory. You'll develop a more sophisticated eye for subtle color variation and unlock new modes of expression through color relationships.
Get To Know Your Paint
Your paint is "color" and should be understood in each aspect individually. Beyond the color characteristics, the underlying pigment also has characteristics that have expressive qualities. Principally these are transparency, opacity and granularity. Two other important qualities are tinting strength and mixability. At this stage of
What Will Help
Expand
At this stage, with a strong foundation in technique and basic composition, the only possible path to growth depends on expansion. Fundamentally, this is a mental exercise that relies on expanded acuity, vision and inspiration that allows skill and technique to be applied in new or newly expressive ways.
Explore
Exploration is the key activity as one actively works to grow and expand their artistic vision and expression. It takes many forms but includes anything that one might consider something other than "painting". This includes drawing, doodling, sketching, observing, thinking, and others. No matter the actual activity, the effect is to consider an idea or subject and how it might be best expressed in an eventual painting. Once you develop the exploration habit, you'll likely find these activities take up more than half of your creative/studio/painting time - in many cases it is closer to 80 or 90%. If these proportions sound extreme, think of the actor, musician, or athlete who spends hours and hours practicing, composing, or rehearsing for those relatively few hours on stage, court or field.
Expression And Vision
The work you produce once you reach this stage should be expressions of scenes and subjects rather than copies or reports. The transition from being a reporter to a composer is usually not direct. You may find yourself producing one type of work then the other along with work that seems to have elements of both. The process is helped along through Exploration and the willingness to Expand outlook and acceptance of expressionistic ideas.