Occasional thoughts and comments on watercolour painting and sketching. You can sign in to this page so your comments will have a username, or just comment as 'Guest'. Names do  help discussions though... :o)

If only I'd brought my sketchbook.... You’re waiting at a bus stop. You’ve no paper or paint or even a sketchbook. Or you come across a scene that would make a good painting and you’ve no materials with you. It happens. Painting develops the ability to look at a subject in a way that we seldom would otherwise. When else have you happily stood and looked steadily at anything that isn’t moving, often for an hour or more? Painters often say they started to see things differently

My personal answer, but from conversations I suspect it’s a question that quickly goes away once you’ve taken the plunge and started painting or sketching regularly. 'Inspiration' is an odd concept and possibly even a myth when it comes to painting. You can just go ahead and paint and the more you do it the better you get at it. I'm most often inspired by the look of the colours in my paintbox. The corner of our garden where the compost bins live. 16x12" If you paint often e

...or it suddenly feels like it. "aka the redeeming power of bold shadows and darks 😆" Sometimes a painting just looks like it's not...

"sketch, paint or draw a hundred people in a week". Just do it 😄

Skies are such a big part of landscapes and obviously turn up in most plein air paintings. This post records the result of an afternoon just painting skies for the fun of it. They're all 16x12" on Bockingford 140lb paper and mostly using just two colours - French Ultramarine Blue and a touch of Light Red to produce the greys. With two of paintings I added a bit of a foreground just to see what impact it had on how the sky looked, these appear immediately after the bare sky v

Painting demonstrations sometimes need different tactics so people can see -which brings some interesting puzzles!

I'm often asked how to paint more loosely - this is what I usually say .

While there's no shortage of subjects to paint, painting the same thing a few times can be fascinating.

A simple mod to a popular plastic palette to give deeper dishes for mixing larger washes

Paul Dodd, a fellow painter more tech savvy than I am, sent me this .gif made of elements from some of my recent paintings. I'm more than...

The colours I use in my paintings

Summer had been threatening to appear but seems to have disappeared back behind rainy forecasts for July, but when the sun does shine the...

Fill a sketchbook and discover your surroundings.

Painting a sailing Clipper from imagination on a Full Imperial sheet.

Stonehaven Art Club invited me to give a talk and demo on plein air watercolour and the puzzle was always going to be how to illustrate...

UPDATE 2: 10 April '24. I've bitten the bullet and started a new Instagram page under the username dannymcshane365 (you can't re-use one...

As it turns wintery, plein air painting gets a bit harder to dress for and hands start to feel the sharp end of the chill. Not everyone...

I'm smitten by watercolour to a degree that surprises and delights me every time I paint, so I'm trying to put that into words here. :o- Firstly, real watercolour is so different from any brush (ha!) that I'd had with it at secondary school. I don't think I'd even so much as looked at a watercolour painting through my adult life until I'd turned 60. Well, 61 really. Sure, some of the famous paintings we'd all recognise might be watercolours, but I hadn't paid any attention to

My attention isn't usually held for long by abstract art, but I've been surprised to find I quickly lose interest in hyper-realism as...

Plein air painting might be an acquired taste, but then it becomes an addiction.