lonely cottage

Lonely Cottage - pen & watercolour, 23x30cm
Lonely Cottage - pen & watercolour, 23x30cm

I find these types of reference photos very intriguing. They may look bland and boring to other people, but to me they have so much potential - you can experiment with changing the colours of the elements and create a whole new feel for the scene. You can paint them again and again and really push the story you'd like your painting to tell. Plus, this one had a very large sky and the foreground low in the composition, a dynamic I think is fun to play with.

For this scene I decided to create a bit more light in the sky and then really play with lots of neutrals and earth tones in the foreground. I do tend to like colour a lot, in case you haven't noticed ;-) So painting in earth tones is a good change for me.

The full step-by-step tutorial is on my Patreon & Renee's Studio.

Happy painting!

Paint a free watercolour online lesson

A free lesson for you!

One of my all-time favourite paintings of a stormy day in a ruined Roman town in Spain.

You can do this! Let me show you how. Join my community to receive this free video tutorial.

Join here
pen before the watercolour wash

pen before the watercolour wash

27 February 2026

Last weekend I ran a poll on Patreon and it seems a number of people are interested in different ways to approach watercolours and adding different media. I'm excited about this! Let's mix things up a...

Read more →

an olive branch in watercolour

an olive branch in watercolour

12 February 2026

There’s something wonderfully calming about painting botanicals. You don’t need to rush — you can slow right down and paint one leaf at a time, dipping in and out of the painting whenever you fi...

Read more →