This week I explored watercolour a little…scared though I be of those soft swirly colours.
I thought I’d paint the same wren I painted a few months ago in acrylic, just to see some of the differences. First I drew an outline in pencil (something I didn’t do with the acrylic version).
Then I inked it in. It was weird not putting any ink shading in and I really had to hold myself back. Oooh, look an #inktober moment 😀 Another reason why I’m playing with watercolours at the moment.
Then I painted it in watercolour. Quite scary because not only was I working in reverse (light to dark) to what I normally do with acrylic (dark to light), if I made a mistake I don’t think there would be much I could do about it. My inexperience screamed at me. Apologies for blurry photo. I need a new camera! ::wails::
It was definitely an interesting exercise, and when I went back and compared it to the acrylic version, you could tell by the lack of opposing colours, that I wasn’t on firm ground with my materials.
One thing I found really interesting was that despite drawing the wren on an angled surface to prevent my perspective from skewing, I still managed to make exactly the same mistakes in his proportions that I made in the acrylic version, even though the watercolour version had a pencil sketch and the acrylic version was sketched fully in paint. I have a video of me painting the acrylic version – I didn’t video the watercolour version as I had no confidence whatsoever. If it doesn’t show up in your email of this post, you can find it here.
I also started a painting of a Bobtail squid (they are so adorable!) – the beginnings of which can be found on my Instagram, but I have yet to finish it, so I’ll leave that until next time…if I finish it.
Other happenings this week include accidentally joining Doodlewash, a watercolour painting community. I was hunting down examples of a fellow artist’s work for my last blog post and managed to join the community without realising it. However this turned out to be fortuitous as it inspired me to do the above. So I now have an account there 😀 Feel free to join me 😀
I’m thinking I will need to switch back to stamps for at least the next two weeks as I have the ‘Create your own Stamps’ workshop on October 29 to conduct and I need my head in the right space. So be prepared to see more stamp work here soon.
I also played with some beads for a short time last night (I was too tired to do anything else), and came up with a new design. Keep an eye out for these earring appearing on my shop 😀
Anyways, there is much yawning happening here, so I’ll shout out to Paint Party Friday which I will be sharing this with tomorrow (because when the PPF post goes live I’m at work and unable to post, so I do this the night before). Don’t forget to wander over there and check out some great artists.
Art always!
Best wishes,
Liz
Comments
27 responses to “Watercolour adventures”
Your wrens are both lovely! Great beading, too. Happy PPF, hugs, Valerie
Thank you so much, Valerie 😀
Happy PPF!
Liz
Beautiful work and video. The beginnings of the earrings are gorgeous.
Thanks, Christine 😀 Happy PPF!
Liz
He came out absolutely beautiful! Are you really not an experienced watercolorist? So lovely!! Happy PPF!
I have been drawing a long time, so I can lean on that knowledge, but I am not very familiar with how watercolour works, and since I am also a control freak and watercolour doesn’t have the control I’m used to, I’m whimpy 😀
Thanks so much for your kind comments and for dropping by.
Best wishes,
Liz
Fabulous post and I loved your video so much! Both wrens are beautiful! Your earrings very pretty! Thanks for sharing!
Peace Giggles
Thank you so much, Giggles. You are very kind 😀
Happy PPF!
Best wishes,
Liz
You’re so hard on yourself, Liz! I’d be delighted if I produced either of those wrens 🙂
My boss said the same thing – I’m too hard on myself. But I fear if I am not then I won’t get any better and I wouldn’t be as good as I already am. 😀 Everytime I slack off nothing happens.
Having said that, I do have a pencil drawing of a blue wren around here somewhere that I drew not long after I left high school and the basic drawing skill is roughly the same, so maybe I haven’t improved other than learning new media 😀
Thanks so much for dropping by 😀
Best wishes,
Liz
Wow, I’m so excited about this bird-picture.
This is so adorable and beautiful.
Great, that one can pursue the development with!
Thank you for showing
I visit from Paint-Party-Friday.
Warm regards
Thank you for such kind comments and for dropping by my blog 😀
Happy PPF!
Best wishes,
Liz
Wow fabulous painting. Love it so much.
Thank you, Nicole! I really need to get myself some of your cabochons. It is definitely on my list.
Thank you for dropping by.
Happy PPF!
Best wishes,
Liz
Wow! This is what I want my watercolors to look like! Thanks so much for posting this wonderful wren painting!
Thank so much for your kind comments 😀 And thankyou for dropping by twice 😀
Happy PPF!
Best wishes,
Liz
I see no hesitation or lack of confidence in the watercolor bird. It is beautifully painted. My computer shows two very similar pieces, both awesome.
Thank you so much, Faye 😀 I did both and they admittedly do look similar (with the same mistakes – I couldn’t believe it). I think my next step is to work out how I can get the opposing colours into the watercolour without being able to layer like I can with acrylics.
Thanks so much for dropping by and Happy PPF!
Best wishes,
Liz
Love your watercolour! Happy PPF.
Thank you so much, Sharon 😀 Happy PPF to you too 😀
Liz
They both are charming!! ~~ Irene
Thanks, Irene 😀
Happy PPF!
Best wishes,
Liz
Oh my goodness! The bird is just wonderful!
So much beautiful work! Have a creative Sunday and happy PPF – Irma
I love your art here today. I love that you are experimenting and did a great job with your watercolor. Both examples are good, but I see what you mean about the acrylic having more intense color in the legs and beak and background, I really like your earring designs, Keep on having fun!
A pleasure to watch your works!
[…] post), which is why I found it so hard to work out how to get that colour balance when I painted the same wren in watercolour because you can’t do much of an underpainting in watercolour (more watercolour adventures […]