An international community with a common goal

The idea for this project is inspired by Jason Nemer and Jenny Sauer Klein, the creators of acroyoga. In 2003, they decided to promote their project and in only fifteen years, through enormous teaching work around the world, they managed to get the new discipline practiced in more than 30 countries, by giving a new job opportunity to traditional yoga teachers and providing training and institutional support. The tool they used was simple: a certified teacher training program.

The watercolor activity experienced remarkable growth in the last decade. We can push it even further if we train specialized educators. Through the projection and implementation of an 'International Watercolor Teacher Training Program' we have the joint mission of creating a community capable of developing teaching tools that help train certified teachers and facilitate their academic activity.

We are not proposing a commercial venture but an educational social project where we can work together to provide well-being to our community. This text is a reflection and motivation for colleagues to join the project. It is a draft that will be modified when a team is formed.

1. Reasons for a product/service to become popular

It is common to hear that watercolor is not popular due to the high cost of its materials. If this were true, cell phones would still be a luxury good. The sustained consumption of any product promotes its accessibility by reducing manufacturing and distribution costs. A teacher training program allows to close the circle in which consumption and access to materials grow.

2. Historical context

— As it did not happen since the industrial revolution, the digital revolution unmasked a serious global educational crisis that was looming before the arrival of Iinternet. The new generations of digital natives reveal an obsolete pedagogical system that needs new proposals and didactic tools to evolve.

— Many currents of thought ensure that activities which help us focus our mind on the present moment promote a healthier life. Art is undoubtedly one of them.

— The new windows of e-commerce have a growing need for visual content, which in turn increases the job market for visual artists.

— There is a growing community of digital nomads, who apparently have no influence on the daily lives of others but are responsible for the spread of many new habits and values. For example, acroyoga was invented at the beginning of this short century and is already practiced worldwide, in part thanks to them. They are restless people in constant search of activities, and perfectly capable of adopting watercolor with passion.

— With the international art market in contraction, it is difficult for any emerging artist to make a living from their productions, and teaching is today an excellent job opportunity. But that is not a choice if there is no vocation. When the teacher is generous, both activities feed back because an artist who teaches his technique in abundance accelerates the development of his own expressive resources.

3. Our conquests today

One possible reason for these two events is visibility on social networks, because the light on the screen exalts the unique transparent beauty of watercolor.

• Art stores are selling many more watercolors and related materials.

• There is a notable growth of festivals and organizations around the activity.

4. What we can improve on and solve with more qualified teaching offer

• Watercolor is an underrated and underestimated tool in schools.

• Watercolor artists lack a common language to describe the technique and many times deficient didactic terms are used in their teaching.

• Watercolor is reputed to be a difficult technique. To this is added that a productivist educational system created the popular idea that to draw and paint well it is necessary to have innate talent.

• There is a big gap between amateur and professional watercolor.

• The technical information from vendors and the distribution of quality inputs are insufficient.

5. Virtues of watercolor

In addition to its unique beauty, this technique has many merits that should be considered:

— It has an extremely wide expressive range: transparency, diffusion, accidents, splashes, halos, blasting and erosions. Furthermore, his brushwork has an infinite morphological variety.

— By practicing this technique, the mind leaves room for emotion and spirit. To understand some expressions of watercolor, we need to load the brush with water and dare to live with that feeling of flooding. There we learn to listen and dialogue with water, to abandon the illusion of control, to be present and inhabit the moment.

— It is an inclusive activity, suitable for all ages, cultures, ethnic groups and minorities (for example, people with reduced mobility).

— Due to its portability on trips it is a very practical activity for digital nomads.

6. adversaries of watercolor:

• In the last century, due to the effect of market rules, modern art has lost the battle with contemporary art. So, thinking on numbers we can say that in the most popular exhibitions there is one painting every fifty conceptual artworks, and that thanks to the preference of gallery owners or collectors for large sizes and for the canvas over the paper support, one watercolor is sold every fifty oils or acrylics. Then we can add that the preference for naturalism defines that for each abstract or modern watercolor fifty figurative watercolors are made. And finally, thanks to a significant shortage of master watercolorists across the globe, there is one professional watercolor every five hundred amateur quality watercolors, or more.

  There is a lot to change and grow in the watercolor world, but without a doubt the biggest enemy is the lack of trained teachers.

• Learning the technique in a wide expressive range requires high-quality materials, starting with paper, which is an increasingly precious input. The consequence for the use of mediocre material during learning is an invisible enemy that has always affected the spread of this activity. This is how we can see poor works of pale contrasts, without depth or freshness. Thus the fear of distributing a new layer of water over a half-painted work is born because the previous layer can be erased. That is why this Achilles heel is the first problem to which to seek a collective solution.

7. Democratic exchange team

• The habit of sharing knowledge is common in the teaching field and not so much in the artistic one. It does not mean that the painter is individualistic, but that he has less exchange with his colleagues for the same dynamics of his solo activity. Communion in pursuit of the pedagogical objective will allow more exchange between colleagues.

• What has distinguished homo sapiens for fifty thousand years is knowing how to gather with a common goal. We believe it is a priority to work cooperatively, through a 'wiki' platform where any user has the power to add content from their own perspective. Promoting an environment of democratic respect is essential for the collective work that this project requires.

• Wittgenstein said that language is defined by its use, and this is certainly also applicable to the language of watercolor. As if we were at a language congress where new words, uses and meanings were reviewed, we should be able to share new ideas. This wiki platform will facilitate the processes of updating, plastic modifications and renewing of the knowledge corpus that we are called to develop.

• We need to find a way of working in communion with the companies that manufacture, distribute and retail watercolors and related materials, because although we partly have different objectives, another portion of targets are common to us so we can join forces to achieve them.

Conclusion

The world has new concerns. The crisis from CoVid19 causes deep revisions in our way of inhabiting the world and knowing ourselves. We believe that art, sport and meditation are tools for health and love. The art of watercolor can teach us how to heal and improve the way we treats ourselves and our neighbors. It is an indispensable instrument in the educational revolution to come. This program can turn the practice of watercolor into a universal value.