Watercolor Exercise and Thoughts

I have been known to do digital pieces, but I do traditional as well. Watercolor can be intimidating to some, since a lot of people believe it should be applied on paper like Acrylics, where you apply a significant amount of pigment possible to the paper, when it’s the contrary- it is the water content you should be worrying about and be aware of how much of the watercolor paint you use as you applying to your piece.

It’s all right to start with a pencil sketch and then work on the lightest tones as possible. You then wait for it to dry a little and then add the other layers of color, as carefully as possible. Doesn’t have to be light, they can be saturated but think hard before you add those colors…!

When I was in school, I remember one my teachers saying that watercolor shows your level of control as an artist to all media. In other words, how possessive you’re with applying colors and techniques and not to mention the most important factor of all- patience. It’s transformative from believing “ah it looks like I wanted” when it’s wet, changing its nature when it’s dry. Water is the factor “that decides at the end” how your piece will look. For some, that can be frustrating and intimidating- hence why it shows you the type of habits an artist may have in general.

The solution is to practice and evaluate how much water you can apply to your piece and do an “estimated guess” on how it looks when dry and learning when to stop. Too little color may look unfinished and too much color it might look to heavy and a convoluted mess of colors. So it teaches you to be balanced in a way that allows you to be selective and really think hard of your choices. If you made a mistake, you can always have paper towels, water or even bleach to fix your mistake if it’s a real bad one. If you want to add texture, you add sponges or even salt! The illusion is to make it effortless and you can go very tight or loose, depending on what you want to do.

With this little insight, I go back to work. Thank you for reading!