Way back on February 3, I started these three watercolors, copied from photos I took out of my Mom’s old calendar books. It was a test to see if I could
A. Do a good enough sketch from the photo,
B. Figure out how to paint them
C. Decide what style works best for me
D. Enjoy the process.
I finished the bird that first day and then set the other two aside for a few weeks before pretty much forcing myself to continue working on them (which says a lot about D). How sad is that? I follow a good half dozen watercolor artists on Instagram and what I’ve noticed about them is:
A. They each have a strongly developed style of painting,
B. They have a tendency toward a subject from which they hardly ever vary (houses, flowers, trees, water scenes, etc.), and
C. They put out a lot of content; some of them are churning out things DAILY, which boggles my mind.
Having now finished the other two paintings, I set them before you:
The lizard painting really cracks me up. You can see by the mouth area that I started to get lazy – who cares how exact all of this blue detail is anyway? And then it turned out to look like he’d been drinking blue Kool-aid and got stains around his mouth. I decided that some black outlining might cover a multitude of watercolor sins.
So here’s what I learned:
A. I think the sketches turned out fairly well.
B. The paintings, while not excellent, turned out better than I’d hoped. I kind of liked how the bird and ladybug turned out, while at the same time seeing areas that could be improved. I enjoyed trying to figure out how to get the colors right (or at least close). It’s a great way to learn, I think.
C. My style? Hmm…Once again I’ve learned that I don’t enjoy work that requires a lot of detail in either drawing or painting. I like working from a photo, though. I really like defining things with a black outline. Maybe I should start with something like that first next time and fill it in with paint? I’ll have to explore different subjects and figure out what I gravitate to the most.
D. In spite of whining about forcing myself to do these, once I got going, I enjoyed the process.
Next, I’ll tackle Lesson 3 in the Watercolor Italy book and also continue to work on finding subjects and styles best suited for me.
A. The ladybug, lizard and the bird
B. I painted them; you have endured
C. This commentary long and boring
D. My thanks upon you I am pouring.
Good day, good people!
I’ll probably delete this in the morning, as long as it’s not a terribly detail oriented job.
Lynniebeemuseoday 