Written by The last time I painted in school in HK was in primary school. I did not remember what grade I was in but Mr. Lo was teaching the painting session. All my school subjects were not art related and I was not particularly interested in paintings then.
When my children were young, we went to bookstores and my oldest daughter was often collecting short stories and young readers fiction books. She also bought colorful comic books and cartoons. However, my second daughter really likes to draw, especially the Disney characters and even took drawing classes in college.
A few years ago, my oldest daughter decided to try those “wine and canvas” and “paint nite” sessions held in restaurants where you can buy a drink and paint acrylics on canvas in a group setting. She showed me some of her paintings and they were colorful and pleasant. I thought maybe I can try it. I painted a few acrylic sketches but did not like cleaning up the paints afterwards. So using watercolors are easier for me.
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My beginning in watercolor painting started 4 years ago by following some tutorials on YouTube. My first painting was a rose and it was easy. YouTube was my first art teacher.
Gradually I posted more paintings on Facebook to share them with my friends and surprisingly they liked them. Even more so are my Tai Shing classmates who gave me compliments. It is something casually that I was doing for fun and not being serious as an artist at all.
About 3 years ago I decided to sign up for a pencil drawing class in an adult school. It was my first real experience in an art class.
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My second class was in Chinese Brush Painting. It was not my first choice but the watercolor class was full. It was different from western paintings and often used single brush strokes and simple compositions.
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I like to paint landscapes in general and occasionally some animals. My paintings got better thanks to the encouragements from my friends. There are about 100 paintings posted on my Facebook page. To paint watercolors as a hobby was not my intention and it happened by chance. I do a few paintings now and then and the difficult thing is to start an idea or inspiration on what to paint. I spent more time that way than in doing a painting.
This is my experience in learning to paint watercolors. It would be interesting to see other classmates’ hobbies and leisure activities and share them in the class webpage.
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Thanks,
Kam Wing Yip
Administrator note:
To see more paintings from Kam Wing Yip, please visit his Facebook page.
