Watercolor Artist and Illustration Career Interview ~ A ‘Doodlewash’ Feature Article on my work and life as a watercolor artist and illustrator
Doodlewash was originally created by its owner Charlie O’Shields to feature his own watercolor sketches, but has quickly grown into a thriving community of watercolor artists from all over the world and is taking on a whole new dimension. Within the past year, over 200 artists, sketching and painting with watercolors, have been featured on all 7 continents, ‘yep… even Antarctica!’ he tells me. To celebrate the one year anniversary of the blog, Charlie founded World Watercolor Month and thousands of artists around the globe have since taken the challenge to make 31 watercolors in 31 days. This entirely non-profit initiative is to help raise awareness for arts education and encourage donations to The Dreaming Zebra Foundation, which helps get art supplies for underprivileged youth.
When Charlie first approached me to do the article I was flat out busy between so many things on my plate as usual. Of course to write an editorial can take up a huge chunk of your time, but there was something genuine and mellow about Charlie from the start that made working with him super easy… and theres a certain kind of drive I love in people who create and share their vision with others. It grows so many wonderful things that feed the world with positivity and I always love to invest in that kind of energy. Besides, we both share a common love of the watercolour medium so… how could I not want to be a part of it in some small way? As it turned out, he was a indeed, genuine pleasure to work with!
The article takes a look at my life and work as a watercolor artist, and puts aspects of my professional illustration career under the spotlight. Much of it you may already know of course, but i thought is had some new and interesting areas of consideration in it you might enjoy as well. I was very happy to receive the message ‘Your Guest Doodlewash post just went live on doodlewash.com! Yay! (I seriously could NOT choose from all your amazing paintings, so I made a gallery half way through the post to show as many as possible! hehe… your work is fantastic! Thrilled you’re a part of Doodlewash now my friend!!)’ and i was even happier to see what a wonderful job of it had had done creating such a beautiful blog article. I wanted to share it with you here today, and perhaps you’d like to join in as a more regular visitor to Charlie’s watercolour painting site. I’m sure it wont disappoint.