A wicked new watercolour community lands in Falmouth

There is a room in the middle of Falmouth with clean white walls, hanging rails and doors that open straight onto Market Street. From September it fills up every Wednesday with people chasing the same thing: the wonderful watercolour they can picture in their head but cannot quite get onto the paper.

What happens on a Wednesday

Wicked Watercolours is launching a weekly community of Wednesday Watercolour Workouts, built to pull anyone “bewitched” by the medium into Falmouth from the surrounding area to work on their skills. Each Wednesday runs a different morning and afternoon session, and each month follows its own theme, so nobody turns up to the same day twice.

The plan is busy. There are fun painting challenges, visiting experts, free painting and paint-along sessions, monthly exhibitions and competitions. Other sessions look past the painting itself, at the parts artists often duck: best practice in framing, photographing finished work, showing it well on social media, and turning paintings into prints, cards and calendars. Some people will come simply to enjoy making something beautiful for friends and family.

September’s schedule gives the shape of it. The month opens on the second with an “Indian Summer” theme, hanging and pricing work for a themed exhibition and a five o’clock private view to socialise. Later Wednesdays move through demonstrations of techniques, free painting practice, a compare and critique session, a book club swap at lunch, and a visit from a framing specialist on what to do, and what never to do, when framing.

Help for anyone the medium has beaten

Watercolour has a habit of humbling people, and this is aimed squarely at that. There are workouts designed for anyone wrestling with the idiosyncrasies and frustrations of the medium, meant to help them get past the sticking points and move towards the paintings they actually want to make.

Critique and “HELP!” sessions run alongside. You can get advice and direction before you put a single mark on the paper, and feedback again near the end, for that awful moment when you cannot tell whether the painting is finished or whether one more brushstroke will wreck it.

The room, and the woman behind it

The base is a road-level building at KCM Church called Fairwinds, currently underused and, by the sound of it, ready for a new life. It has hanging rails for a fresh exhibition each month, a large TV for DVDs, YouTube and instruction programmes, and white walls clean enough to project images onto and paint. There is a carpark just up the road, and an unreasonable number of cafés and bars in every direction for when lunch is needed.

The idea comes from Fiona Loveday Pruden, a watercolour specialist and teacher of more than 20 years, and a Cornishwoman glad to be back in her home county. Her reason for starting it is blunt. “I have noticed that there really aren’t that many good/interesting/adventurous watercolourists down here,” Fiona says. “Most seem to resort to adding opaque media, gouache or acrylic paint, rather than work with the unique joys of painting with pure watercolour.”

📷Fiona

Beginners welcome, experts too

The pitch stretches across every level. Never touched a watercolour before, dabbled and want more, or an experienced hand who wants to lose an afternoon in it, there is meant to be a place and a level for each. Comfortable, challenged, supported to grow, is the promise.

More is planned beyond the weekly sessions. Fiona wants to bring back the popular monthly Creative Makers meetings, where local creatives share knowledge and ideas, plus a library of watercolour and art books and DVDs, away-days to see exhibitions, and trips up-country to visit materials manufacturers.

Before the September launch there will be related activity at Fairwinds through August as things get organised, and anyone curious is welcome to come along, even if only to say hello and share a few thoughts. For details of joining the community, contact [email protected] or telephone Fiona on 07956 537140.

📷African Sunset