Saturday, September 3, 2016

Watercolor Experiments (9.3.2016)


Watercolor is one of those art supplies that I've always had and always wished I was better at using, but I've never actually put the time into learning to use them. They've just always felt intimidating to me, and everyone always seemed so much better at them than me that I hardly ever tried.

But no more!

Recently, I've become intrigued by watercolors as a medium, and I was sick and tired of being intimidated by them. Over the past couple of days, I've been attempting to venture into different ways of using watercolors, and I'll be sharing some of my experiments here.

First and foremost is the photo above. To be completely fair, this piece isn't all watercolor - it's actually Sharpie and gel pens over the top of a watercolor wash. However, this was extremely soothing to experiment with and was a fun way to play around with some ideas that had been floating around in my head.



My next watercolor experiment was much more specific. This is face 4/29 of the 29 Faces challenge, and I'm fairly happy with the way it turned out. The hairstyle was extremely inspired by my new haircut that I got last night, and it's probably my favorite part of this piece. The color scheme is another thing that I'm particularly happy with. 


It's in the close ups that you can see this piece's unique watercolor charm. There are the sorts of things that initially drew me to watercolor in the first place, and I'm happy that I was at least partially able to recreate them.

  • On the left, you can see some of the watercolor stain-like marks, especially in the ear and the corners of the eyes. The shape of shading for the nose is another one of my favorite parts of this piece - it reminds me of a comic book-esque style, of which I am definitely a fan.
  • Here you can also see that I cheated just a bit - I used a Sharpie pen (which I highly recommend, by the way - I love using them for my morning pages and they are extremely pleasant and flow nicely) to add the details of the nose in a dark black. I didn't want them to run, and it seemed to be the perfect tool for the job.
  • On the right, you can see a bit better detail on the lips. I like the expression that this girl in particular has, playful yet somewhat suspicious.

Last, but certainly not least, here you can see some of the finer details of the hair. Playing around with the different shades and layers of brown to create strands was extremely fun to do, and it was much simpler to add texture with watercolors than with a lot of other mediums. 


Now we make our way to the final (work in progress) watercolor experiment that I have to share with you. I saw several people doing this on different social media sites (instagram, pinterest, etc.), and I felt like it would be fun to give it a shot. 

As you can see in these photographs, not all of my blotches of color have doodles in them yet, but this is another thing that I found extremely soothing to do while watching youtube videos or just sitting and listening to music. It was almost meditative. Again, I used a Sharpie pen to make these marks. 

None of these pieces are perfect, but I hope that inspires you to do something with watercolors, especially if they're something that you've been avoiding! What are your opinions on watercolors? I look forward to hearing from you!

6 comments:

  1. I know what you mean about watercolors...I like what you are doing very much...thanks for visiting my blog space :)

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    1. I'm glad that you like what I'm doing with the challenge! I've been having such a fun time doing it and sharing my results.

      And you're more than welcome, your art is beautiful!

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  2. Great art today. Watercolors are difficult for me. I tend to stay away from them. I love the eye brows on your face today.

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    1. There's something weirdly intimidating about watercolors. I think it's because we have a certain idea in our minds about the way it's "supposed" to look, and we forget that art can be anything we want it to be. I'm glad you like the eyebrows, they add so much to an expression and it's something that I love experimenting with!

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  3. I too am intimidated by watercolours...I have lots of different types too and add them into pieces with other mediums...I know I'm not alone... This is an awesome, what looks to be, selfie... I really love the hair...great piece and play by play too!! I have always loved sharpies and started out with them ten years ago...I still love them...but rarely use them anymore...You have inspired me to do some more doodling again! Thanks for sharing!

    Hugs Giggles

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    1. Doodling is such a good way to just sit down and relax for me, especially if I'm tense or on edge for any reason. Sharpies are just a generally good way of getting the job done. I'm glad I was able to inspire you!

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