Art Every Day

I can’t tell you how many times (oh…4, 5?) I’ve paid good money to take watercolor classes and I have failed miserably. I’m going to spare you those images, not post them here so you can agree with me.

So, I found the most incredible work on a site where the artist embellishes monotypes with watercolor and colored pencils. That’s what’s inpired my recent posts, right? So, quickly I realized that I just don’t understand watercolors. I can do a tolerable job with colored pencils (at least, I think it’s tolerable!) but I figured I’d better learn how to do watercolors.

I found  a couple of really good books that point out that you really have to have GOOD materials, and the dirt-cheap watercolor tubes I bought for my classes just didn’t cut it. You know the ones (without naming names)…$2 for 24 tubes of ‘fine artist’s watercolors’? If they’re so fine, how come there’s no pigment information on the tubes? So, I shopped around and figured out that Winsor Newton are the ones to have. Ummm…$26 for a tiny tube of Alizarin Crimson. Maybe I don’t need THAT fine a quality watercolors while I’m learning, so I bought a Cotman set (still Winsor Newton, but their ’student’ grade) of half-pans. What a difference! I’ve been happily following the instructions in the watercolor method books I bought and I think I’m starting to figure this out!

Anyway, here is a painting I did for the Virtual Paintout this month (which is Corsisa).

Made a couple of small changes and calling it done. I hope my mystery-man thinks it’s a close enough likeness!
8×10 Acrylic on panel.

Well, I’m not sure I’m done with this or not–thought I’d sit on it a few days and see what I think…

Here is the original photo. This was a little difficult to work from since it was somewhat washed-out lighting-wize.