Watercolour portraits by Donna Stiles
- telling the story behind the eyes
Ciao! I'm Donna, a watercolour portrait artist who loves to paint portraits that tell a story and animals with attitude!
This is my website. A space for me to share with you my latest creations as they appear on the paper. My thoughts and feelings as I paint them.
And. To help you. If you are just starting out on your watercolour portrait painting journey. To get the results you want faster. By sharing with you the things that changed the game for me. The things that took my paintings forward in leaps and bounds.
I hope you find something you like amongst all of it :)
My watercolour portraits
What always catches my eye and has me excited to start painting is the LOOK. Whether it be attitude - and, oh boy, does my teenage daughter have some!
Or the story waiting to be told behind the eyes.
My watercolour portraits gallery.
My wildlife watercolours
I have a particular fondness for animals that have got something to say. Most do! Especially about what we are doing to this planet of ours and how we treat them.
And hares. Especially hares.
They tend to tell it just as it is!
Old man hare
Of stars and earth,
Old man hare had seen it all.
One night bathed in moon,
He caught man's eye,
And told his truth.
Take a look - my watercolour wildlife art.
Colourful watercolour pet portraits
I like to paint colourful watercolour pet portraits too!
This is my Zeus, who featured as a class project in the beginners watercolour class that I teach each week.
And these are some of my watercolour dog portraits.
Painting watercolour portraits
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my tips for improving your watercolour portrait painting fast
I started painting in watercolour just a few years ago and am self-taught. I studied watercolour artists whose style and work I admired, read books, and watched a lot of videos. I still do! And painted my way through the laughter - trust me watercolour painting makes you laugh as you ask yourself why on earth you just did what you did! And as it gently reminds you that it will do what it it wants to do!
And the tears. As I did it again! Despite that niggling voice telling me not to, I did!
Learnt from my mistakes. With watercolour, especially with watercolour, you have to make the mistakes to learn how to deal with them. There's no other way. It's all about the love affair between the amount of water, the surface of the paper, and the personality of the pigment - whether the pigment likes to dance, or not!
And I stopped painting what didn't fill me with joy when I was doing it. Not because it wasn't turning out. But because I wasn't born to paint those things. It's not straight lines!
Then. Things clicked. Big time. And came together like second nature. The watercolour dance now included my brush, most of the time telling me what to do.
I want to share with you here what I learnt that helped me make huge strides in a very short time and made me feel really happy with my work.
Because, when you are fully in that moment with watercolour. When what is happening in front of you makes you dance. Literally. When you actively let go of trying to have complete control because you know that the results are going to be so much more beautiful than anything you could do yourself. It is pure bliss and there is nothing better.
And we all deserve moments in our lives like that. Moments that take us away from our everyday worries and leave us feeling so very happy with what we have achieved.
So, find a quiet place. Turn on your favorite music. And let's see if what helped me can help you too.
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What's New blog
The place to find my latest watercolour portraits and new articles.
Find out more about me
You can find out more about me here.