5 Years of Progress in Watercolour Landscapes.

Highlights from my stack of 700 paintings.

The first painting! My set of watercolours had just arrived in the mail and I dashed off this quick landscape. Is that a mountain or an Aztec temple? Kindergarden level achieved! How to mix red and green?. I guess the house got sunburnt out there in the desert. Trying really hard on this one. I even signed it. Look at that gigantic windmill! Was trying for a typical watercolour cityscape here but its all a bit stiff. Followed a tutorial from Bob Davies here. I started watching lots of tutorials. I thought I service station would look amazing. Not quite lol. My first attempt painting outdoors. This took hours! Tried again at home. Slightly better, but poor fundamentals. Woah green. Painted this from life. Tried three times and this was the best. From a photo. Not sure what went wrong. Another youtube tutorial. Painted well, but its a bit kitsch. That foliage is getting there. This was my favourite for a while, despite the muddy colour in the foreground and lack of soft edges in the trees. Trying really hard here! Painted this for my grandma- I replaced it with a better one a couple of years later. I was really happy with the colour in this one, but the perspective is all messed up! Was trying for spooky. This was a favourite for a while. I loved the atmosphere and softness. I painted it from someone else's photo though. Seemingly forgot about atmostphere and softness. Colour is a bit garish too. Nice red door. What is going on with that gate?. A milk bar. Looks better here than IRL. Copied from a photo. I thought this was perfectly painted when I did it! No blooms or mud. Clean colour but boring subject! I still like this painting. Copied from someone else's photo though. I really liked this one too, though I have no idea what is happening with that power pole. Finally starting to use my own photos. Tried to paint as saturated as possible. Edges too hard. Gloomy scene, but loosening up. hmm. Pretty clean. Perspective might be a bit weird?. Good atmosphere. Composition is a bit dull. Painted from life which is always harder. I got that path right, but those trees are like big pom poms. I still like this even if it is really muddy. Blacks aren't nice in watercolour. Same scene, bigger. Had a good photo to work with here. A bit of creativity in composition. Not good at buildings then... or now. Simple, but kinda fresh. Still have frequent disasters. This is so overworked and dirty. Nice, but could be done with a little more confidence. Breaking rules here. Warm in the distance and cool in front. Could be nice if I added more colour other than green and brown. A little messy in places but I'm still a fan. An odd clash of moods. Perhaps needs some more things happening in the distance. Trees! Values are a little messy. Really loosening up, and painting confidently. This was done in 30min. Another very quick and confident painting. Looks so much cleaner! Back to painstaking. Simple Good even if its green. Almost there. A bit flat? Some nice little boats and things. Lots going on Maybe my best painting. Entered it into an art show and got a Highly Commended I still like the dark forests, but this is a little too pretty. A big boat painting. I can't do much better than this. One of my most recent paintings. Fresh and has some style.

Thanks for taking the time to look through all my crappy old artwork. Hopefully it will be a bit of an inspiration to some. These days I do a lot of oil painting, and will probably do a similar post about my oil painting progress. Please follow me on Instagram @scottzonn if you'd like to see when I release that.

While you're here, please take a look at my weird homepage where I post new paintings in a reverse auction thingy.