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Author: Watercolours by Rachel

Watercolours by Rachel avatar
My name is Rachel Toll and I am a watercolour artist based in Devon, England. I love painting and gain much inspiration from the landscapes, wildlife and coasts of Devon and Cornwall. Wildlife painting has become a major part of who I am. I strive to capture the essence of the subjects I paint and the eyes of the animal hold a special place in the painting. Once I have the eyes I like to work loosely, leaving much to the viewer’s imagination. If people like what I have painted then that makes me very happy. https://www.watercoloursbyrachel.co.uk/
  • Sharing my techniques, a seascape

    Sharing my techniques, a seascape

    I spend a lot of time visiting galleries and looking at other people’s art. I got chatting to an artist and finally admitted that ‘ yes I did a bit of painting too’, after chatting about styles and mediums he asked how I made a living , I talked…

  • Painting a dandelion clock

    Hi from a very soggy Mid Devon, last week it was so very hot now it is pouring down Wow look at that sky , that is definitely one to pop into my archive and use at a later date.   And while I write the clouds have moved on and it is brighter ag…

  • Painting the summer

    Good afternoon, thank goodness the temperature’s dropped since the highs of Monday , Tuesday and Wednesday. Here in Devon it didn’t get quite as hot as some places, but it was still too hot for me.     I managed to do some work in my studio, as…

  • Here’s something that took me ages to work out… ( waves)

    I thought about what to put in my blog this week and, I thought I would start a small series of blogs about some very simple techniques. They took me a while to work out but  made life much simpler for me as a watercolorist. I must admit most th…

  • A small foxglove painting to try

    So in this blog I thought we’d try a smaller more manageable painting ,maybe a hour or two of watercolour will take you away from the world. I wanted to show you all again how I go about exploiting watercolour’s extraordinary properties, to mak…

  • In & Out The Dusty Bluebells ( step by step bluebell painting)

    At the risk of being biased, there is nothing quite like an British bluebell. We have a rough and wild  garden and the Spanish bluebells have taken over.   But a short walk down my lane and I can be surrounded by the  real deal, a bank of decidu…

  • Painting not one puffin but two !

    Here in my corner of Mid Devon the seasons are changing , early Spring is giving way to an abundance of wildflowers in the hedgerows and woods. Bluebells and wild garlic are blooming everywhere, and the trees are gaining their leaves.      Whi…

  • Always learning, always painting

    People ask me a lot how long I have been painting , and the easy answer is as long as I can remember. I never stopped. We all draw and paint as children and then most people just stop , well I carried on and please don’t ask me why? I had no gre…

  • Adding a dark background ( magnolia )

    It’s the small things . I was in Crediton this morning at my local chemist and saw this packet of spray bottles, supposed to be used for travel toiletries, but invaluable to me as a watercolourist. They can lose their sprayability ( made up wor…

  • Different watercolour skies

    Here in the Uk we are blessed with so many kinds of weather probably the reason we are obsessed with it.  Everyday I go my morning walk and look up at the skies with artistic interest  No 2 days are ever the same. So I wander around with my …