have you got any tips for landscape watercolours? i'd love to be able to paint scenery outdoors but i find the idea really intimidating

I’m kinda new-ish to it myself, but I’ll share my thoughts and experiences!

I think it would be a great idea to use a smaller, folding palette that shuts securely, and even better would be to fill it with tube colors that will be generally good for landscape work: ochres, siennas, umbers, etc. Smaller palettes are easy to carry if you’re getting into hard to access outdoor spaces. I use the one I keep at home because I’m currently lazy and haven’t customized a plein air specific palette yet! (Note: certain watercolor brands (M. Graham and co.) use honey as a binding agent. Bugs love it. So do take note!)

If you’ve got a nice sturdy palette with pan watercolors, by all means use that! I find these are the most popular option? At least from what I’ve heard.

A brush roll/case comes in handy for brushes. I bring a very narrow selection (big tapered sable, mid-size round sable, and a little liner, if I feel like getting grassy textures in.) Alternately, you can use a waterbrush: a synthetic bristled brush screws onto a plastic, squeezable handle that acts as a reservoir for water. Handy! Either way, it’s handy to bring a little rag/towel to clean off pigments if you need to. I otherwise bring a glass water jar that screws shut, a small mason jar works great!

For paper, I tend towards smaller watercolor sketchbooks. Initially, I was using the Moleskine ones, but I switched over to a Hahnemuhle watercolor sketchbook because not only was it smaller, but I immediately fell in love with the paper. Most of these come in landscape format, hurray! Cold press paper is a good choice for the heavy washes that tend to come from plein air painting, and it’s a good idea to have a paper you’re familiar with. Nothing worse than being in the middle of nowhere and realizing you hate the paper you’ve brought with you.

Many artists may bring traveling easels, especially if you are in a space that enables you to “spread out” a bit. I just plop my little book on my knees and sit on uncomfortable rocks and logs. 

Generally speaking, plein air painting should be quick, and more or less impressionistic, but I find this depends on how quick you can paint. I’m slow, and have a tendency to sketch things out, so I have to get big washes down quick before the light changes. Blocking in big washes of light color and filling in details/shadows/color shifts from there make things work. I tend to work all over the page, instead of focusing on finishing one area, as though your are bringing a blurry image slowly into focus. Squinting at your subject can help to inform tones/predominant shapes, and those will be the most important aspects to capture. Details can come later! You can always develop an on-location painting later at home. Exact color matching isn’t important. Nor is getting every branch just so. It takes time and patience to loosen up, but being outside is the best place to do just that! There will be failures, and you’ll feel overwhelmed/silly, but all of us do. I know I deal with the fear of failure every single time, but the joy of getting through it anyway is it’s own reward.

Some links from folks that do plein air painting: http://danielsmith.com/blogs/georgia-mansur-plein-air-like-a-pro-watercolor-toolbox-tips/ and a forum that I myself need to start perusing: https://www.outdoorpainter.com/category/plein-air-beginners/