Watercolour Painting - Painting People

Figures are not difficult to paint if you simplify the shape of a person into something we all recognise and can draw. Using a simple shape like a carrot, painting people into a landscape scene is easy. Paul Cezanne, the famous French impressionist, who first discovered the value of carrots in learning to draw and paint said, ‘The day is coming when a single carrot freshly observed will cause a revolution’.


On a piece of paper practice, with your rigger, drawing the outline shape of a carrot. Now fill it in. Paint a few carrots.


Next put a dot on top of some carrots - not too big, and leaving a small gap to represent the neck. Paint tiny darker carrots on the remaining carrot bodies, and what have we got ? Men and women!


If you spend half an hour painting carrot people you will find they start to grow arms and legs. What’s happening is you are starting to improvise and sketch, and the more you practice the better you will get at painting people.