Watercolor Conversations with Cara Brown

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Fifteen years ago, five artists joined my first watercolor group. We painted on folding tables in the sanctuary of the sweet church I was part of at the time. Two never came back. Three have never left.

This episode is about what happens when we paint long enough, about what comes through our work, whether we realize it or not.

It's also the introduction to a new series of conversations with some of my artists about their watercolor life, and why they stay.

See the collages of the first few artists whose work I saw (or heard) their visual voices, and read the orgin of this whole idea: https://www.lifeinfullcolor.com/journal/art-life-stories/october-25-2016-visual-voice/.

Cara Brown - Watercolorist - Teacher - www.lifeinfullcolor.com
...is where you can find all my paintings, workshop offerings and the entire archive of my writing.

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This is an accidental episode that came out of a conversation with my Claude.ai, of all things. It used a word that sent me into my archive to an episode that gets at a mysterious aspect of art-making. I take a stab at it, though it may not be something that can truely be put into words.

The post that Claude's word sent me to is here: https://www.lifeinfullcolor.com/journal/art-life-stories/april-19-2016-ordinary-sacred-stillness-every-painting/. You can see the painting Douce that I describe here.

I end with a teaser about episodes to come - actual watercolor conversations with other watercolorists!

Cara Brown - Watercolorist - Teacher - www.lifeinfullcolor.com
...is where you can find all my paintings, workshop offerings and the entire archive of my writing.

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A tender episode about how we can look at big disappointments in life in a way that both allows our grief and loss - and mines the power in them - to live our lives with meaning that we'd not have without the loss. This is my story - my watercolor story, specifically.

I'm a big fan of singer-songrwriter Sara Bareilles. Immersing myself in her new album, Good Grief, sent me to a related post that I share in this episode. Go to https://www.lifeinfullcolor.com/journal/art-life-stories/june-9-2015-the-gift-in-our-unlived-life/, to read what I wrote and see the paintings that were in the big plastic bag under my bed.

Cara Brown - Watercolorist - Teacher - www.lifeinfullcolor.com
...is where you can find all my paintings, workshop offerings and the entire archive of my writing.

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Ten years ago I pulled an oracle card that gave me this edgy message - "destruction before creation." At first I recoiled from it - no, not this one! I invite you to hear how I soon found my way to the wisdom in it - and to how it's guiding my creative life again - right now.

The post that I landed on while cooking the vegetables I'd just picked from our garden is here: https://www.lifeinfullcolor.com/journal/art-life-stories/june-28-2016-destruction-creation/ if you'd like to read.

Cara Brown - Watercolorist - Teacher - www.lifeinfullcolor.com
...is where you can find all my paintings, workshop offerings and the entire archive of my writing.

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Underneath the color, the water, the light, the composition — woven through it all— is ingredient we haven't expressly talked about. You.

No matter how much experience you have, or how much success you've found, you are never NOT in your paintings. There is only one of you that will ever exist in all of time. Only one person who can make the art you're here to make.

Learning to paint mostly isn't about the techniques. It's about becoming more yourself — and revealing that to the rest of us in what you make.

This episode is my spiel about how precious it is that we do this thing, this making of paintings on watercolor paper - as only we each can.

Thank you for being here. I'm so glad you're listening - and painting.

Cara Brown — Watercolorist — Teacher — lifeinfullcolor.com

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Composition! It's a step back to consider what goes in and what doesn't, what variety to include, how elements relate to each other - and then how all of that will be bounded in shape and size. I'm sharing my thoughts on how it is that consider all of this in my paintings - my process of composing a painting. I don't follow rules, I don't even think too much. It's a felt thing. In case reflecting on my process is helpful, here it is!

The "round" painting I menonted in the episode is here: https://www.lifeinfullcolor.com/gallery-available-originals/eternal/

Go to my website - below - to see the outcome of composing all my paintings over the years.

Cara Brown - Watercolorist - Teacher - www.lifeinfullcolor.com
...where you can find all my paintings, workshop offerings and the entire archive of my writing.

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We started this series with color. Now, with several episodes of painting experience behind us, we come back to it — and it looks different from here.

This episode draws from my second color workshop - where we limit the paints we work with. I start with an idea that genuinely blew my mind when I first realized it: the primary colors we all learned in grade school aren't the real primary colors.

We also look at what happens when you deliberately limit your palette. I've painted with six paints, with four, and with just three. What I've found is that a limited palette doesn't just create harmony and cohesion in a painting — it grows you as a color mixer.

And there's an exercise: invent colors in your head and try to mix them. Olive green. Straw gold. Terra cotta. Navy blue. Red wine. Sepia. It sounds simple. It's kind of mind-blowing. And it is how you actually learn to mix color — by doing it.

I periodically offer Color II - Limiting, Layering and Claiming Your Colors in person in the studio and live online. You can sign up for my email newlsetters on my website: https://www.lifeinfullcolor.com, where you can also see all my art and the workshops I offer, incuding this one!

Cara Brown - Watercolorist - Teacher - www.lifeinfullcolor.com
...where you can find all my paintings, workshop offerings and the entire archive of my writing.

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My antidote for overwhelm. If when faced with a complicated section of a painting, you've thought: how on earth am I going to paint this? — this episode is for you. It's the other half of the Making it Real pair of workshops.

Painting detail isn't about special techniques or clever tools. For me it's more about strategies to stay with it, keep from trying to "organize" the detail in your reference, and paint just enough detail to make the point, but not so much it becomes distracting.

I've found that crazy-detailed sections reveal themselves progressively — once you've painted something, the next steps become clearer.

Here's Blush - a painting I mention in this epside: https://www.lifeinfullcolor.com/gallery-floral-still-life/blush-2/ It was the lower part of the right-hand peony that sent me on tilt.

This is a workshop in my series Watercolor Basics and Beyond. I plan to offer it in segments online coming soon. If you'd like to be notified, you can sign up for my email newlsetters on my website: https://www.lifeinfullcolor.com, where you can also see all my art and the workshops I offer, incuding this one!

Cara Brown - Watercolorist - Teacher - www.lifeinfullcolor.com
...where you can find all my paintings, workshop offerings and the entire archive of my writing.

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This episode is one half of the Making it Real workshops from Watercolor Basics and Beyond. Creating volume — when it seems like you could reach out and actually grab the subjects of a painting.

In order to do so, we make use of what I shared in the past three episodes. Water and edges. Shape, shade, color. Light and dark. Soft backgrounds. All of it comes together here, helping our art to look like its subjects come off the paper!

Link to the painting Fascination, I mentined: https://www.lifeinfullcolor.com/gallery-available-originals/fascination/

This is a workshop in my series Watercolor Basics and Beyond. I plan to offer it in segments online coming soon. If you'd like to be notified, you can sign up for my email newlsetters on my website: https://www.lifeinfullcolor.com, where you can also see all my art and the workshops I offer, incuding this one!

Cara Brown - Watercolorist - Teacher - www.lifeinfullcolor.com
...where you can find all my paintings, workshop offerings and the entire archive of my writing.

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Besides "the light," a characteristic of my paintings are my out-of-focus backgrounds. I'm asked often how to make this happen. I this episode I share my thoughts - about working with the paint and brushes to make distinct shapes with soft edges. it can be tricky!

They are more work than some artists want to put into the areas around their subjects, but I find them an important part of the story our paintings are telling.

This is a workshop in my series Watercolor Basics and Beyond. I plan to offer it in segments online coming soon. If you'd like to be notified, you can sign up for my email newlsetters on my website: https://www.lifeinfullcolor.com, where you can also see all my art and the workshops I offer, incuding this one!

Cara Brown - Watercolorist - Teacher - www.lifeinfullcolor.com
...where you can find all my paintings, workshop offerings and the entire archive of my writing.

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The illusion of light in our paintings is a magical thing. Using just contrast between dark and light - and the subtleties of relative shades between, we can create a world. In this episode, the forth in our series, hear how in response to a short question, I came up with the four aspects of how it is that I (at least) create worlds of light in my paintings.

Includes ideas from a post orignally published under the same title "Painting the Light" on May 31, 2017 which can be found here: https://www.lifeinfullcolor.com/life-stories/may-31-2017-painting-light/
This page includes photos of example paintings.

This is the second workshop in my series Watercolor Basics and Beyond. I plan to offer it in segments online coming soon. If you'd like to be notified, you can sign up for my email newlsetters on my website: https://www.lifeinfullcolor.com, where you can also see all my art and the workshops I offer, incuding this one!

Cara Brown - Watercolorist - Teacher - www.lifeinfullcolor.com
...where you can find all my paintings, workshop offerings and the entire archive of my writing.

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I made something for you! My first intentional series of Watercolor Conversation episodes. They are a visit to the ideas and information I share in my regular workshops. Teaching from me - right here - for you to take on the go.

I arranged them in the same sequence that I teach - as a progression of what I have to say about making watercolor paintings in the way that I do. For regular listeners, you'll find some of them familiar. I've re-purposed existing episodes. There are a number that are brand new, as well.

You don't need to listen to them all at once, or in this order, even. Of course, follow your own curiosity and inspiration. I'm hoping they will accompany you when you want a little guidance, orientation and encouragement.

I plan to offer a series of online, live workshops - coming soon. If you want to be notified, signup to be on my email list on my website: https://www.lifeinfullcolor.com

Cara Brown - Watercolorist - Teacher - www.lifeinfullcolor.com
...where you can find all my paintings, workshop offerings and the entire archive of my writing.

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We begin with color — not as a set of rules, but as a relationship. I don't teach color theory, I teach color practice. I can think of no better way to start - especially if you are starting from scratch, than what I share here.

In this episode I share sections from two previously published episodes: The Two Faces of Color, which looks at color as an idea — abstract, personal, full of surprises — and Starting at the Beginning with Paint, which starts at that beginning place - with a practical exercise: swatching.

It's like a handshake, an introduction to a tube or pan of watercolor. How can we really know until we see what it does mixed with water on paper?

I plan to offer the Get Intimate Workshop online in the next few months. If you'd like to be notified, you can signup for my email list here: http://www.lifeinfullcolor.com - where you can also see the description of that workshop and the others I offer.

Cara Brown - Watercolorist - Teacher - www.lifeinfullcolor.com
...where you can find all my paintings, workshop offerings and the entire archive of my writing.

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This is the second episode in this series - all about the water. Watercolor isn't watercolor without water — and yet it's the water that trips most of us up. In this episode I share three principles I keep coming back to, what I think of as the physics of watercolor on paper. Once you understand them, so much of what this medium does starts to make sense.

This is the first workshop in my series Watercolor Basics and Beyond. I plan to offer it in segments online coming soon. If you'd like to be notified, you can sign up for my email newlsetters on my website: https://www.lifeinfullcolor.com, where you can also see all my art and the workshops I offer, incuding this one!

Cara Brown - Watercolorist - Teacher - www.lifeinfullcolor.com
...where you can find all my paintings, workshop offerings and the entire archive of my writing.

Send us Fan Mail

In this next stop we head inside - our brains and our perception. Our brains are brilliant shortcut machines — and when we're painting, that can get completely in the way. This episode is about how we see — or rather, how we can learn to see again, as if for the first time.

Shape Shade Color is a practical strategy for those moments when you're stuck in front of a painting and your inner critic is picking apart what you've just painted. Have it help you figure out where to go next.

This is the second workshop in my series Watercolor Basics and Beyond. I plan to offer it in segments online coming soon. If you'd like to be notified, you can sign up for my email newlsetters on my website: https://www.lifeinfullcolor.com, where you can also see all my art and the workshops I offer, incuding this one!

Cara Brown - Watercolorist - Teacher - www.lifeinfullcolor.com
...where you can find all my paintings, workshop offerings and the entire archive of my writing.

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I take a bit of a departure in this episode. I share my thoughts about a poem called "Mameen" by David Whyte. When I first read it, this poem reflected for me the remarkable life of my friend Vicki - Dr. Victoria Bentley - and the courage and freedom she lived inside.

Vicki passed away recently, which brought this poem back to me again. I'm sharing it with you, in memory and appreciation of my dear friend who accompanied me in the early stages of painting, showing my work and teaching. I'm not sure how Life in Full Color would have come to be without her. I will be forever grateful.

Cara Brown - Watercolorist - Teacher - www.lifeinfullcolor.com
...is where you can find all my paintings, workshop offerings and the entire archive of my writing.

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I share the outcome of this past summer's 92 Days of Watercolor and a project I embarked upon to paint more loosely. I was inspired by a long-ago painting that came back to me. The idea came to me that I could paint eleven more paintings in a similar style and make a mini calendar out of them. When I recorded this I had only painted four of them and was uncertain about the outcome.

I finished the paintings and put together a small calendar I call "Momentos." You can see - and purchase for yourself if you like - on my website: https://www.lifeinfullcolor.com/2026-mini-calendar/.

The painting that I found so hard ended up the October image.

Here are the other two paintings I mentioned:

Blue Door: https://www.lifeinfullcolor.com/gallery-other-flowers/blue-door-2/

Returning: https://www.lifeinfullcolor.com/gallery-available-originals/returning/

Cara Brown - Watercolorist - Teacher - www.lifeinfullcolor.com
...is where you can find all my paintings, workshop offerings and the entire archive of my writing.

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In this episode I share how I find continued value in the way Iain McGilchrist's book The Master and His Emissary reframed my understanding of our left and right brains - not only as it applies to our creative process and working with our craft, but how it can guide us in how we work with artificial intelligence. No doubt it will be a major aspect of our future.

My original post that inspired this is here: https://www.lifeinfullcolor.com/journal/art-life-stories/january-19-2016-left-and-right-brain-not-what-we-thought/

I tell of a painting and its evolution, which you can see here:

https://www.lifeinfullcolor.com/journal/art-life-stories/january-5-2016-the-story-of-a-painting-and-a-video/

Cara Brown - Watercolorist - Teacher - www.lifeinfullcolor.com
...is where you can find all my paintings, workshop offerings and the entire archive of my writing.

Send us Fan Mail

In this - a little bit longer episode - I share the story behind writing my interpretation of The Beatitudes - eight ancient teachings - for those of us who dare to create. My wish is to support us in creating with our singular vision and voice. Then, I share each of the eight Beatitudes.

It's a combination of three consecutive journal entries, the first of which I called Supremely Blessed. https://www.lifeinfullcolor.com/journal/art-life-stories/april-26-2017-supreme-blessings/. You can see the painting I called Beatitude here too.

The teachings themselves start at minute 7:50, if you'd like to jump right there.

Cara Brown - Watercolorist - Teacher - www.lifeinfullcolor.com
...is where you can find all my paintings, workshop offerings and the entire archive of my writing.

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Doing all this myself, this was bound to happen. A big silent space ended up right in the middle. It's now fixed.

I'm sharing this one again, with a short intro and update on an interaction I had with the mailman that I mentioned in the original episode.

I felt the need to hear this message today. Here it is on the top of the stack in case you want to hear it - or hear it again - too.

This is a calendar time-specific episode, though the ideas are applicable for any time in life. I wrote a journal entry in the spring of 2016 when I was in a place of sorrow that coinsided with Holy Week - between Palm Sunday and Easter. I drew upon something I'd learned about a day that isn't talked about - Easter Saturday - for solace and for the reminder, the permission to honor my time of grief. Having a creative practice is a form of the light of love that can transform our suffering.

My original writing, and a the painting I had just finished that was meaningful for me - to this time - can be found here: https://https://www.lifeinfullcolor.com/life-stories/march-22-2016-easter-saturday.

Cara Brown - Watercolorist - Teacher - www.lifeinfullcolor.com
...is where you can find all my paintings, workshop offerings and the entire archive of my writing.