Watercolour Progress

I’ve always said that I couldn’t paint.  I have no brush control.  But as I’m developing my art skills, watercolours is something that appeals to me greatly.

I’ve had watercolour pencils for a while now, which I have to admit have been mostly ignored since I discovered alcohol markers.  And last year I did some experimenting with a cheap waterbrush and the paints I’d had for years.

I decided after that to get myself some better paints.  And so for Christmas I got myself a nice set, some brushes and a palette.

The brush in the paint set was very not-useful.  Not for painting anyway, but I put it with the brushes I use for glue.  Swatching was fun.  I know that some people dislike swatching, but I really enjoy it.  And the colours are very pretty.

The paints seemed a little chalky.  I’ve watched enough art videos on YouTube to know that chalky is not good for watercolours.  But I carried on regardless, because they were pretty and new.  And I needed to practice.

I painted a little galaxy.  I’d been working on galaxies with alcohol markers – which I will blog about at some point.  As usual, the galaxy looked kinda crap until I added the stars.

I painted a little monster.  Because that’s what I do.

Which is when I discovered I had used the wrong inking pen.  I didn’t notice it with the galaxy because I used black paint.

So the next step was pen testing.  I do enjoy the testing aspect of new supplies.

And once I’d narrowed down which pens were safe to use, I started on an actual piece of art.

I remembered to paint sections that were not adjoining so that the paint didn’t run into itself and go muddy.

And I remembered that I could use a heat gun to dry the paint quicker – which is good because I’m impatient.

I learned that I need to be more careful about dripping paint.

And I got gradually more annoyed with the chalkiness of the paint.

I practically ruined an inking pen going over the lines after it had all dried.  But I enjoyed making the background, and I’m happy with the piece overall.  Who doesn’t love K-9?

The chalkiness irritated me so much though that I haven’t really touched them since then.  Which, as you can see from the date on K-9, was back in early January.

I have just bought myself some proper paints though – as well as some other supplies – so look for some more watercolour learning posts soon.