Written by My name is Carmen Costea. I live in Bucharest, Romania, which is a very beautiful country in Eastern Europe. I’m an electrical engineer now and I work in an electricity distribution company.
As a child, my talent stood out in my primary school drawing class, and my mother was advised by my teacher to enroll me into the local art school. My mother thought that I would die of hunger if I was a painter, so she guided me towards the exact sciences instead. Luckily, I really loved science because it is set in stone, and thus, I could really get to the bottom of it.
I rediscovered the pleasure of drawing almost three years ago, after a tragic incident happened in my life. Drawing became an escape from the real life.
One year later, I became fascinated by a watercolour tutorial on YouTube, and I tried to paint in watercolour myself. At first, I tried to learn by myself, without any help. My paintings from 2 years ago looked like anything but watercolour.
About a year after, I started playing around with watercolour. I met Iuliana Florea Lucan – a wonderful artist and teacher, who was very honest to me and said, “You know nothing about watercolour.” She pulled me to reality, and with her help, I started to learn about the techniques behind painting in watercolour.
The lesson in which I started to understand the meaning of watercolour was the class in which I painted with Indian ink. In that moment, I observed how beautiful the pigment dilutes into water and spreads on the paper. I was fascinated. I learned that colours and water are very hard to control, but at the same time they challenge you to play with them. To obtain a beautiful painting in watercolour you have to let the colour dance with water on the paper, merely suggesting a direction for it to go.
Now, I attend Iuliana’s watercolour classes weekly, improving my skills, and I paint by myself in every spare moment I have. These times are relaxing moments for my soul, an escape to another world – the world of imagination, colours, peace.
Through trials and errors, I learned that it is not enough to know how to paint. You also need quality materials to ensure an awesome piece of work is completed. My favourite tools that I like to use are Canson Moulin du Roy, Arches or Saunders Waterford – 100% cotton paper, and Winsor & Newton, Schmincke, White Nights St. Petersburg or Sonnet watercolours. I also use squirrel, horse or synthetic hair brushes, and I have some from Da Vinci, Raphaël, Tintoretto, ProArte and a few other brands.
My favourite techniques include trying to reproduce the texture of materials such as wood, glass, pearls, lace, embroidery or ceramic, the transparency of water or tea, and thus, I like to paint still life. I like to reproduce aristocratic, vintage, delicate things, but also I like to capture raw facial expressions in my watercolours.
I had a few shy attempts to participate in exhibitions: 3 in my country and one in Alcorcón, Spain, near Madrid, along with other Romanian watercolour painters. So far, I only received diplomas for participation, but I still enjoyed taking part in them.
All of my paintings are for my soul, even though I often offer some of them to my friends, as presents for different occasions. Painting is my pleasure, so I could spend many hours, without noticing them passing, without thoughts, as if I was meditating.
“Talent is a gift from God to you. What you do with it is your gift to God.”
– Leo Buscaglia
Carmen Costea
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Love it…😊
Thanks. ☺️🙏🏻
Carmen, your work is beautiful! I love the way you handle edges and perspective. Thank you for sharing your artistic journey with us.
Thank you very much. 🙏🏻🤗
Beautiful work, Carmen. Thank you for sharing!
Thanks 🙏🏻☺️
I find your watercolor paintings entrancing, Carmen. Each is a window into serenity and wonder. You’ve mastered many subjects, from still life to portraits. Your lace paintings are amazing – I nearly reached out to touch the delicate lace. Beautiful!
Thanks for you words of praise, Sharon.
For some reason the ones that impacted me the most are the mug of tea with the orange (lemon?) slice in it (the beautiful ways the contrasting colors blend (and the out-of-focus foreground) and your portraits. You captured something special in those.
Thanks. I also like when i succed to reveal the transparency of liquids in watercolour, in contrast with other opaque materials.
Hi Carmen! I admire your wonderful work.You are very talented!I am from Romania too(live in US now)and enjoy watercolor painting in my free time as a hobby.
Thanks. 🙏🏻☺️ I wish you all the best.
Your florals and lace are absolutely beautiful! Thanks for sharing your story and your work.
Thanks. 🙏🏻🤗
Oh my gosh your work is amazing. You describe watercolor so well. I love watercolor and I don’t aim for realism in my art. I just paint and love mixing color.
What did your teacher recommend needs improving.
Woud you like to tell me what are your recommendations for me? 🙂
Please, would you like to tell me what are your recommendations for me? 🙂
I don’t have any. Your paintings are lovely.
Thanks. I know that I have a lot to learn about watercolour before reaching the level I dream of. I also believe that the more I learn, the higher I will reach for.
Carne I just returned from a tour in Bulgaria Serbia and ROMANIA…..You live in a wonderful city…actually quite amazing considering the History.We visited Timosoara and Brasov..Transylvania of course and Bucharest.Your paintings are amazing…I am really just starting with Tutorials on U tube….I have done some Urban Sketching…but I need to move away from the architectural renderings…I am not good at those but your work is inspirational…I will take some tutorials on Texture.I wonder if you have a Web page.
Regards….
Thanks for your words of praise for my country. I have only my Instagram page where you can see all my pictures: @dreams_in_watercolour 🙏😊
Simply lovely!
Thanks.🙏😊
i m from Bangladesh.i always follow this website .but never comment in this.now i can’t keep quite to see ur lace work,its amazing.thnx for sharing
Thank you for your words of praise 🙏😊
There are here many other talented people. Maybe my watercolours are more close to your soul. Thanks again 🙏❤️
Me he quedado fascinado por tu camino al re descubrimiento de lo que te llena el alma, y me identifico contigo un poco. Recién en este año 2018 del mes de junio descubrí mi pasión de pintar en acuarela, ver tu relato y tus pinturas me inspiran mucho.
Muchas gracias
Gracias por tu apreciación. ¡Éxito con tus pinturas!☺️
Thank you for sharing your art, it’s lovely! 🙂
Thanks, Janneke 🙏🏻🙂