Work from Everyday Watercolor - Day 4

Work from Everyday Watercolor - Day 4 - Abstract composition

Another challenging exercise. This time working on day 4 of the popular book Everyday Watercolor. This seemed to take way longer than expected by the author. It took time to pick out the 6 colours. I like the set I picked well enough but don't love them.

The exercise challenge is to balance warm and cool colors, stay within lines and practice painting right next to previous washes of paint. This seems to work on water control and gauging drying time.

I also got a bit of practice fixing mistakes. I had a couple of large blooms I wanted to fix and one or two drops that got outside of lines.

I was very happy with the Winsor and Newton Cotman #6 brush this time. The springy tip did a great job cleaning up tiny edges. Previously I had issues with this brush dumping little bits of water and the tip "squaring off" sort of but not this time. Maybe it was the amount of paint I was using?

Learning:

Choosing and using a larger palette (6+ colors)
Water control
Fixing mistakes by picking up paint
Smoothing out blooms with a slightly damp brush
Cleaning edges with the very tip of the round brush

New to me:

Mixing orange with these Cotman paints
Using Indian Red as a neutral. Used here to tone down Cadmium yellow and Alizarin Crimson

Materials:

W & N Cotman watercolor
Strathmore 400 Cold press 140 lb.
Princeton Neptune #8 round
W & N Cotman #6 round

Comments

Work from "101 Watercolor techniques" - Exercise 005

This exercise was a bit of a struggle for a beginner. Believe it or not the result below is the third attempt. The point of the exercise was to get a result of depth on the paper using only analogous colours and without using color gradation. I am sure I learned something from it. What I think I struggled with among other things was "water control" - keeping the water within the small leaf areas from running. Learning: As I went along I had a little bit more freedom with the strokes. I started to notice how the exercise author was using negative space and tried to replicate it. \

Art book first impressions: Get up and Gouache. Also first ever gouache!

I just received this new book late last week. I was a little disappointed initially because it doesn't look like the level of the exercises builds very high? I was hoping to see some step by step breakdowns of the more exciting, storybook art pieces in the back such as "Lost". The only more complex piece with a breakdown is "Magical Mountains". However I probably just have hubris and the exercises will probably be very challenging. We will see. I jumped right in and did the first project with my Turner Design Gouache. This was my first ever try with Gouache! This exercise turned out to be a great way to test the paints because there were lots of colours to mix. Main takeaway: Wow! Gouache is such a bright and rich medium! I can't believe this colour of red! However, I realized I screwed up when purchasing my basic set. I didn't purchase a dark blue or dark green. Those are now ordered and on the way. I will update this review after...

Work from Everyday Watercolor - Day 3 - Triangles

This is an exercise in brush control and glazing. It worked better than my first attempt at glazing. I only had one spot where the color started lifting. (Left side bright yellow triangle) Materials Strathmore 400 paper W&N Cotman Gamboge W&N Cotman Permanent Rose New to me: New color: Using W&N Cotman Gamboge New color: Using W&N Cotman Permanent Rose Learned from this Triangles are very forgiving. If you go past the end you can just make them bigger. When glazing there is a little bit of a "hump" when transitioning from paper to paint that requires practice not to jiggle and make the line waver.

Crashing water

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