THIS IS WHY your watercolor painting didn't work! 

▶︎Free Video Lesson: 7 Secrets of Fresh, Powerful Painting www.learntopaintwatercolor.com/7secrets

I’m definitely guilty of adding too much detail and will focus on one focal point. Thanks for the lesson!

This channel is a gem 😊

This beats a lot of your valuable lessons Matthew! I’m going to look at my painting, done yesterday and see if it’s why I don’t like it. I will drum this Into myself every time I decide on a reference photo from now on. It’s probably THE most important element in a successful painting. Thank you so much ( and occasionally, keep reminding us).

Great lesson! So true and so hard to stick to minimizing the surrounding areas of your focal point. Often times you get caught up in the beauty of a scene and want to include all the details! Then once you step away from your painting you get completely overwhelmed by how busy and messy it looks. Soooo much to learn! Definitely not an easy medium but man I love it, even if it frustrates me most of the time😅 Really hope to one day get close to your level, until then I'll keep watching and learning from your videos

This is an amazing lesson. Thanks Matthew!

Your 2016 paintings look better than my bests 😂😂😂😂. Haha, thanks for sharing, Matthew! You deserve more subscribers! Hope you and your family are well. Your passion for watercolor is contagious. Thank you!

Funny, this just happened to me two days ago while I was painting in the field. It became a nice composition with way too many hard edges. I'm going to use your advice and do a second version of this painting today.

This was definitely one of the most important lessons in watercolour painting. And an excellent video. Matthew, you clearly pointed out the problem that so many of us struggle with, and you pointed us to the solution. Over the last couple weeks I completed a few paintings that turned out much better than previous ones and was wondering why. It’s because I had a focal point with more detail and used shadows effectively. Thanks for this video!

Thank You Sir Matt for sharing your secrets in water color painting. This is very helpful for me as a beginner. Thank you once again....from Siquijor, Philippines

Once again you have my attention - one of my fav paintings that still isn't finished has 4 focal points that I thought were good. So I'm going to do it again (after 4 tries) with one focal point - if I can choose one and only one focal point. You have my attention Matt.

You are a wonderful teacher. Thank you

This is clear and to the point. Evansen's paintings are subtle, so your noticing of this and showing it helps clarify why his paintings "work" compared to many other painters'.

It's like you just showed me how to SEE. ❤❤❤

This was so very helpful! Thanks so much!

I totally agree. Thank you for your great insights!

Great video! Would love to see a redo of your earlier painting.

Wow! Extremely helpful!

So helpful to compare less successful work with great paintings, and analyze the differences ! Thank you !

Exactly like in a photograph, it's almost all about the focal point, and some guides to lead the eye around! thanks for the video, really interesting!

As good as ever. Thanks Matthew for sharing

Super video👍🏻. I was painting in my sketch book yesterday, a landscape.. I’ll be painting it again today with a softer background and less detail. Thanks!

Thanks for sharing such a simple but important point

Good tips sir Fantastic clarity Love it🎉🎉🎉

Thank you so much for your lessons in this video.

I'm from Minnesota. It's crazy I felt like I knew the exact locations he chose to paint I love this state It's beautiful. I'll be painting more local landscapes after seeing his work It's simple yet effective.

Thank you Matthew,what an excellent video to help us with achieving our goal and vision as we continue our art journey!

Great examples and explanation, thanks!

Thank you for explaining this so clearly! I have so much trouble giving up the details surrounding the real point of interest. It sounds simple but clearly needs planning. Great video!

This might be one of best art videos I have seen.

Thank you, After watching this video I tried it on a painting I did this morning. I softened some trees and made other colors brighter…it definitely looks better😊.

very, very interesting Matthew

Thank you so mutch!

Thank you very much Matthew. It's funny that many times we already know this but we keep making the same mistakes over and over again.

Hi Matthew, Thank you so much for your videos! Would you please share a video on your gear care/maintenance? Cleaning, storing, repairing, preventatives, etc.. Thank you for your consideration!

Thanks you 😊

great tutorial. Thank you for your sharing

Thank you for the absolutely wonderful mentorship to the community! I would also want to ask a query.. so is this technique of defining focal attention and knowing when to put down the brush and not overworking the painting span all areas and mediums of the art or does it apply only to watercolor? the reason I am asking and please forgive me for my ignorance is because in old renaissance paintings it looked like everything in the scene was crafted with immaculate detail and even felt like if the commission had a bit more time left the painter would have done something more lol.. but on the other hand for water color I love this technique because it creates a powerful pull towards the subject.

Thank you for the well said points in the video. I have received the email but theres no link to the free lesson.

Hi Matt, beautiful video and examples chosen to prove your point are equally beautiful. Andy Evensen is no doubt a wonderful artist of our time. Also you gave come a long way in 8 years, so good job there. Thank you for the video 📸

I think we can have more than one focal point in a successful painting, but one should always be more dominant than the others. The other focal points lead the viewer through the painting, like a visual path. And in the end, they should lead to the dominant focal area.

That’s a great lesson, but I wish the problem in my paintings was just not concentrating on one punchline. 😅 My water and color control is still very shaky, so I get hard edges where I want softer ones (because that area dries much quicker than I wanted) and I get softer edges where I was too impatient to wait for the part of the painting to be completely dry. 😩

I’m thinking of signing up for your Essentials course. Just listened to explanation of your teaching and I could relate to everything. Do we watch your videos from our email. This will be the first online course so I have a lot of questions…..?

While I agree that the focus of a painting should have the greatest attention (detail, contrast, saturation etc), I don’t think that everything else in a good watercolour painting should look like it is in the fog. Many great water colourists can still provide good levels of detail to other elements of the painting and yet not lose the focus. Examples of artists that do this well include could include John Pike, marine artist Carl Evers and figure artist Steve Hanks. Of course if one prefers the out of focus look then that is one thing but if a more naturalistic look is sought then it is a matter of being really good with atmospheric perspective and graduation of detail throughout the depth portrayed in the painting.

This problem with me is with buildings I always paint the windows black even if they are miles away but with nature I have less problems so maybe I need to sketch more buildings and go to a plain air and paint only buildings because I had a lot of nature plain airs but not buildings and plain air is a very affective way to learn for me I don’t know why but I think I am starting to paint quicker and trying to do it accurately when I am on plain airs so yeah ( the problem is that I am not 15 and I can’t go out to paint buy myself so I could paint only paintings of my summer house and region house that are very boring buildings so I painted nature )