I’m on a roll. This time I’m following this tutorial. I picked it because I want to learn how to incorporated a background into the composition. This one appealed to me in how the artist represented depth of field. Also, I still want to loosen up my rendering style. The last one I did, I felt was too loose.

I don’t like this approach in that we’re starting and finishing areas of the portrait all at once before doing the next area. It’s hard for me not to build up the whole thing to see where I need to make adjustments as I go. Even though it looks okay, the process is very uncomfortable for me.

I followed this tutorial, although how to paint wrinkles aren’t what I got from it. I was looking for a way to loosen up my portrait rendering. I did this all in one day and forgot to take wip shot so here it is…

What I learned:

I like that it was looser but I don’t like that it’s “sketchier” — I want it to feel more substantial. It was a good exercise in that I’m much more comfortable doing portraits, not because it’s good as much as I know that if I mess up, I can just make another one. Maybe after 10 more of these, they will lose their preciousness.

Starting another Louise de Masi class this week. Stepping it up one notch and used the reference photo to freehand sketch instead of tracing her line art. Not that it matters that much but there’s def some translation that happens there. I inked my sketch and now ready to trace this to my watercolor paper.

paper: Fluid 100% cotton, 140 lb.

giraffe ink drawing file PDF)

Now, I really want to do something different with my portrait backgrounds but I feel like they should be looser and I don’t know how to do that yet. A little searching on YouTube led me to Enjoy Art’s tutorial. I tried my best to follow along.

What I learned:

• That you really can use just three primary colors and two brushes
• I prefer drawing with pencil before painting
• I can use the reference photo as a jumping off point
• It doesn’t have to be so labored to feel dimensional and alive, in fact, it feels more alive this way.
• I like seeing the strokes and blooms but I’m still uncertain about the more traditional watercolor “style.”
• I do like the organic edge

For this watercolor study, I’m going to use Arlee Bean’s palette.

 

Some hacks I’ve come up with so far:

• ice cube tray for water helps me keep my paint clean
• labels on my pan set that corresponds to my color chart split primary palette
• for each painting, I create a palette on a scrap piece of paper that I also use to test blends on the fly

Used Gamblin Artist Colors Cold Wax (not affiliate) to varnish my finished chrysanthemum. It did not smear. Supposedly, this can be used instead of glass so I could mount and hang this like a canvas painting.

I’ve started using erasable markers on my palettes so that I remember what’s what. Assuming each painting takes at least two weeks, this system has been really valuable.

 

If I’m being really neatnicky, I should test this technique with every paper and paint color.

What I learned: it’s more challenging to do with darker colors — meaning more pigment.

 

 

 

 

What I learned:

• I have a lot of crap brushes. lol but I’m not going to use that excuse not to paint right now.
• My favorites: for washes are the ink pens and detail the #6 Van Gogh (in the round brush pic)

I powered through the leaves in one evening. Painting the bigger areas was both intimidating and fun. What was most important to me was getting the contrast right between the leaves and the petals. I wanted the leaf on the right to be really dark.

What I learned:

• water control: I’m not great yet but practice makes better.
• on the leaves: using the side of the brush is great for making the edge smooth
• I want to do more of these small pieces just to keep working with watercolor
• I want to try 100% cotton paper

Woo! Hoo! Two weeks later, I finished the petals. I started on September 12.

What I learned:

• Mistakes are not dealkillers. I used to think watercolor was really unforgiving compared to oil. But I’m amazed at how much I was able to correct things I wasn’t happy with — the way you correct them is just different than oils. So phew, that makes the medium a lot less frightening!
• I learned how to take my time. I didn’t rush the process. Just an hour every day, slow and steady. That’s another thing I really liked about watercolor: I could stop and come back to it a day later or a week later and that was probably even better than trying to finish it in one fell swoop.
• I liked how “effortless” it was — the brush is light, the board is light, the paper is light, there’s not much paint. Again, there’s something about oils as much as I love it, it’s so arduous and big and heavy.
• I noticed how much tension I was holding in my hands/fingers and when I let loose of my grip, my strokes actually came out better, like just “brushing” the surface, literally.
• I re-learned how to “see” again — how to look really closely and notice how light and shadows make edges. That was fun.

Okay, moving on to leaves….

 

I’m using this project as a warm up and brush control exercise before I work on a personal piece. This process seems to be working. I think I’ll keep doing that — keep two projects going at the same time.

I’m also pondering size. I want to work bigger than this but this 8.5 x 11 size is really manageable — I can turn the board really easily when I need to for controlling edges and water. But as far as finished pieces, I’d like to get comfortable with up to 24 x 36. I’m getting ahead of myself tho. Focus.

 

Adding the deeper values on the right side is helping “shape” the flower. This assignment like a puzzle. I’m hyper focused on rendering each petal to match the image. It’s only when I step back to see the overall form that it starts to come together. Whereas if I were painting in oil, I would be focusing on the large shapes first before diving deep into the details. Hmmmm. Is that the medium or is it because I’m not making the big decisions for this assignment — just rendering or is it this particular approach to watercolor?

I think with oil I can keep painting over forever so that helps. And the transparency of watercolor means I’m layering up from light to dark so it’s totally different. It’s kind of like a print in that I have to flip the way I’m planning a piece. Some people just totally go with it though and don’t plan.

What I learned:

• It’s hard to get the dark parts down and have them blend. I end up pushing pigment around and it gets splotchy.
• I wet the paint to get a damp enough brush to paint smoothly but then it’s not dark enough. I guess I can just glaze but if I glaze on top of a really saturated area, it re-wets it and then that pigment gets pushed around too. Hmmm.

What I’m discovering:

• It’s easy to fall back into habits of going back into wet areas to adjust things.
• I don’t have the exact colors that are prescribed in the class. I’m missing that bright bright pink.
• It would make easier on myself if I didn’t skimp on the drawing.
• I have a tendency to pass the buck down the line. For example, “I can’t figure that part out. I’ll deal with it in the painting stage.” And that makes the painting stage trickier.

What I learned:

I couldn’t protect the highlights in the center. Even if I kept it dry and did the softening edges technique with the damp brush, it eventually spread to the center. If I had to do it over, I might use the masking fluid.

 

Here’s where the rubber meets the road, where color mixing + water control + brush handling = actual painting! I’m learning so much, where to even begin?

I don’t want to think about drawing, composition, etc. yet so I’m following along with Louise de Masi’s Master Watercolor Techniques class on Skillshare so I can focus on painting technique.

Notes to self: I’m using Fluid hot press 140 lb. paper. Louise recommends a lot more brushes but I found that I could get into the teeniest corners as well as cover a whole petal with my #8. I used the flat bristle brush as she instructs, to clean up edges and mop up paint for highlights.

What I learned with the first wash:

• I need to learn exactly how wet to get the paper before applying a wash. This does depend on the paper.
  • If the water is puddling on top then it’s more likely that the edges will be feathery because the water will move outside of where I applied it so I’ll have to clean up the edges.
• I can use a damp stiff flat brush to clean up edges.
• I can control the softness of an edge in different ways — I experimented with all sorts of techniques in this first stage
• I can extend the drying time by “massaging” the water (Maria Raczynska) into the paper.

 

I’m enjoying doing these exercises more and more and they serve as a nice warm up to a painting session.
Decided to use them not just as warm up but also see how different colors in my palette look in different concentrations. #1 is 708 and #2 is 533. Using scraps from sketchbooks to conserve paper.

Note for self: these were all done wet on dry.

I already see an improvement from my first set.

What I learned:

• Brush size matters a lot
• Mixing up the right amount of paint beforehand helps (assessing the size of the area I want to fill to determine the amount).
• Keep the size of “the wet edge” manageable. For example, for the glazed value exercises moving along crosswise instead of lengthwise. Even though I can cover a wide surface with the size 8 brush on it’s side in one stroke, I risk parts of the edge drying too much and causing blooms.

 

 

I bought this set of ink brushes a few years back. When I was working with gouache, I hated them. They were not stiff enough to control the paint because duh, that’s not what they’re for.

What I learned:

• Yes, brushes matter but I don’t have to get all fancy
• The range of stroke sizes and control is amazing in this set
• Each brush holds an amazing amount of paint (compare to Silver Brush Black Velvet).

What I learned:

• Each pigment behaves differently in a gradient wash
• The right brush size makes all the difference
• Some colors, like #662, tend to “bronze” at full strength — you can actually see that in the picture I took above.
• Warm ups really help — I want to start with warm ups before doing any “real” (not sketch) paintings from now on.