Rainbow Bisque

Sometimes I experiment and get great results Other times, my experiments lead to less impressive things. A number of different things sort of converged to make this piece spin out of control: the drawing was a little sloppy, the transfer was a bit off, the background wash warped the paper too much, I hit the black too early and too hard, and I got impatient and frustrated. Working within the space of a negative mindset ruins watercolor. By its very nature, this type of painting requires you to paint thoughtfully and embrace the flow of the water and pigment on the paper. A bad watercolor painting (in my mind, at least), is one where the artist has visibly struggled with the paint and over-worked the brush and the paper. I stopped for a bit, then came back to the office to try my hand at some watercolor exercises from Watercolor Essentials. I had a little more success there (and I can share those next time), but by the end of the night I knew it would be best to rest and reflect. ...

I would call my day of learning a huge success. Practicing value scales with individual colors taught me a lot about mixing paint and using water. I also learned a great deal about the differences between alizarin crimson, cadmium red, and permanent rose. The lizard is an experiment in mixing watercolor and watercolor pencils to suggest complicated textures and shifting colors. It isn't my favorite piece; but there are a lot of things going on that I really like. That eyeball is sufficiently creepy.

I've decided to take a step back and practice the fundamentals of watercolor. I jumped into this daily project hoping to learn by doing: stepping out of my comfort zone, experimenting, sitting down, and doing the work. I've never had any formal training in this medium: just youtube videos and a few books. It's surprising to see just how far that little bit of knowledge and passion has taken me. So today is all about focused practice with color and value. I have been following step by step instructions from Watercolor Essentials . The mountains in the above photo were my first attempts. They are pretty sloppy and uneven, but I learned a lot from them. Most notably: it is much easier to lighten watercolor than to darken it. Back to work!

You are looking at a piece of fanart I did for a game called Nuclear Throne - which I've been playing pretty regularly for the last couple weeks. I have had this piece drawn out for a really long time, but I wasn't entirely sure how to paint it. Now that the finished piece is in my hands, I'm really glad I finished it. This is a combination of watercolor paint and watercolor pencils on 300 lb. hot press paper. The background was painted with a light wash of cadmium yellow. The "sun" was carefully painted with a medium wash of cadmium red. Everything else is watercolor pencil. As for the lighting - I sort of made it all up as I went along. There are inconsistencies here and there, but I am happy with the results.

Not a whole lot to say here. I worked on each segment individually - attempting properly (and smoothly) blend color to the outside edges. I think I was mostly successful on that part - it wasn't until I began adding black that everything sort of went...wrong. The black pattern is fairly accurate, but it sort of eliminates all of the work I did to establish the round forms of each segment. It is flat.

Drawing and painting small objects is a lot of fun. There are a lot of details that one doesn't really pick up on when an object is viewed from afar. Small things, by virtue of their size, are always viewed this way. As far as the painting itself, it was fun to get some use out of my tiny brushes.