GUEST DOODLEWASH: Stealing Time to Paint

First of all, thanks to Charlie O’Shields for taking the time and allowing me to be doodlewashed! I’m David Calderón Real, from Spain (follow me on Instagram!). When I was younger, I wasn’t used to drawing a lot, but I’ve always been interested in art, oil and acrylic artists and ink drawings. Once I started my technical studies, I needed to exercise a lot my skills to draw. I don’t have any training in arts, only my self-taught techniques.

I am a technical designer now and I’m used to drawing lots of things every day for my work, technical drawings all of them, but I always need to imagine how things are; so I’m always exercising my spatial vision.

Once I started painting with watercolours, I discovered that is my preferred medium. I failed lots of times in my learning process, my trial and error method, but the key is to keep going.

I like to look at colours in my environment and try to imagine how to get them. 

My inspiration comes by looking on the internet (Instagram mostly) at works by other artists, and guess how to achieve them. Now that we have this tool, is easy to learn lots of things by losing some time looking for someone who does something.

I draw with a waterproof ink pen when I draw urban landscapes that are then painted with Winsor & Newton watercolours, but I prefer to paint directly with watercolours when drawing natural landscapes. Winsor & Newton watercolours are my favourite ones because I see them brighter and more close to natural colours than others. I like the Canson® Guarro® Acuarela paper, because is not as permeable as the traditional ones.

My brushes are the traditional ones, stored in a case that was done by me (with the help of my mother for the needlework).

I am a very novice painter with not the time that I would like to draw and learn, but I try to steal time from other things to paint.

I use the watercolours to relax myself, and I try to learn as much as possible testing new ways of doing so.

David Calderón Real
Instagram

Charlie O'Shields

Creator of Doodlewash, founder of World Watercolor Month (July), World Watercolor Group, and host of the Sketching Stuff Podcast. Sharing watercolor illustrations and stories while proudly featuring talented artists from all over the world!

See author's posts