Recently, while adding to the collection of judgments behind "Ask Tee Sang," I wrote down a question.

Why is it still hard to keep painting after signing up for a watercolor class?

It sounds like a question about self-discipline. But over my years of teaching watercolor, I have seen many people go from signing up earnestly and submitting homework on time to gradually leaving the paint box unopened. I increasingly feel that stopping does not mean they no longer like painting, and cannot simply be put down to laziness.

When the course ends, the setting that helped you act disappears too

In class, you are in a fairly complete environment.

There is a fixed time, a teacher's demonstration, a clear assignment, and other people painting with you. For a while, you do not have to decide what to paint today or what to do next. When a problem comes up, someone responds. Once the appointed time arrives, it is relatively easy to sit down.

When the course ends, those conditions disappear with it.

The interest may remain, and all the paints are still there. But suddenly, where to begin the next painting is your own decision. There is no assignment, no teacher waiting, and no classmates handing in work alongside you. What many people lack is not enthusiasm. They have lost the way in that helped them start.

This also explains why someone can paint well in a course and stop as soon as it ends. The course supplied a setting in which they could act. Outside that setting, they have not yet established their own way of beginning.

That is common, and there is no one to blame.

What beginners lack is often not talent

Many people buy an inexpensive set of supplies when they first try painting. That is reasonable. Nobody knows whether they will keep going.

But some papers, paints, and brushes demand more careful water control and a more practiced touch. Good materials cannot finish a painting for you, but unreliable materials can make early practice harder. A teacher on the other side of a screen can tell you that there is too much water, that colors have become muddy, or that you have rubbed the paper repeatedly. It is much harder to relieve the discouragement of failure after failure.

So a beginner can easily fall into this sequence.

The painting does not go well, so they question the materials. They change the materials and still cannot control them, so they begin to question themselves. The course was not very expensive, so giving up does not feel like a large loss. Finally, they reach a conclusion.

"Perhaps I have no talent for painting."

Yet what they really lack is often enough time to become familiar with the process. Water, brushwork, the paper's response, and the concentration of color all have to be learned through repeated attempts by hand. A teacher can explain techniques, but the feel for them still has to grow within your own body.

After copying, come back to painting your own life

There is nothing wrong with beginning by copying and practicing technique.

When adults become students again, sometimes they need to start by "doing as they are told." Find a teacher whose work you like and whose explanations are clear, then follow one exercise all the way through. For a while, set aside "I think it should be done this way" and see how the teacher observes, orders the steps, and handles water and color.

That "doing as you are told" has a time limit. It does not mean handing your judgment to the teacher forever. First, borrow an established method. After finishing, look back at which steps worked, which did not suit you, and whether you can apply it to a photograph of your own next time.

If you want to paint like the teacher, a few lessons are unlikely to get you there. A class can offer methods and demonstrations. The breadth of seeing, fluency, and amount of practice the teacher brings to a painting are things you still have to build for yourself.

That is also the point of copying. Borrow the teacher's eyes once, follow the teacher's hand through the process, and eventually return to painting your own life.

I no longer require myself to turn painting into a habit that must be completed every day.

For me, painting, photography, reading, and writing are all ways to express observation and thought. We do not have the same strength of desire to express ourselves every day. Painting intensely for a while, stopping for a time, and later picking up a brush again is normal.

Some people still want to paint after stopping. They simply never know what to paint or why they should paint it.

So I would rather suggest finding a reason connected to your life.

Perhaps you have a cat and want to record it growing up. Perhaps you have returned from a trip with a photograph you cannot bring yourself to delete. Perhaps a bunch of flowers or an afternoon beside a window makes you want to keep the feeling of that moment.

Then watercolor has somewhere real to go. It becomes a means of expression, and the composition, water control, and color mixing taught in class begin to serve that particular thing.

You do not need to begin with a large, complete work either. Find a photograph that means something to you, choose just one method from the course, and paint the part you most want to preserve. Finish that small piece first, and picking up the brush next time will be less difficult.

Why I would suggest trying an in-person session first

For someone just beginning watercolor, if time and distance allow, I am more inclined to recommend an in-person introductory session first.

An online course can give you the teacher's experience, steps, and techniques. When to open it, whether to practice according to plan, and whether to continue after encountering a problem are largely for you to arrange. When signing up, we also find it hard to estimate our time and state over the following weeks. We often overestimate our ability to follow through and underestimate the frustration of handling problems alone.

The in-person situation is quite different.

Within a clearly set three hours, a teacher can see how you hold the brush, how wet the paper is, and why one area of color has failed to meet another, and help you adjust as the problem appears. You do not have to guess alone where things went wrong or let one practice session turn into a long-term task. With the teacher's guidance, you can finish a complete painting.

Finishing a painting is only part of it. People can also observe the city together, talk about what each notices, and learn how to turn the scene in front of them into an image. This is closer to a painting experience you can feel at ease in. You arrive, follow along, and within a few hours have both a painting and a sense of what watercolor feels like in your own hands.

First, finish one session comfortably in a setting with company and timely responses. Then decide whether you want to keep learning.

Leaving a place for questions about painting

This article comes from a small thing I have been working on recently.

The September workshop will accompany you through those three hours. Once you return home, the next painting will still bring new questions. To leave somewhere for those questions to go, I have also tried something else.

I made a mini program called "Ask Tee Sang," adding, one by one, the judgments I have accumulated over years of painting and teaching watercolor.

You can ask about materials, water control, and copying, or about learning difficulties that are harder to describe. Questions already included in the collection receive my answer directly. Questions not yet included are recorded. After I add an answer, you can return to the mini program to see it.

If you have experienced that stage of "I can paint in class, but stop when the course ends," you can try asking there.

Why do I always find it hard to keep going after signing up for a class?

You are also welcome to ask about a problem that is genuinely stopping you. I want to understand exactly where people learning watercolor come to a halt.

There is no need to regret pausing your painting for a while. Knowing how to begin again when you want to paint is already a good thing.