I love the look of watercolor art, but I am woefully horrible at it. I try and try, but it doesn’t seem to improve much. Nothing comes out the way I want it to. I think part if the problem is that I get so discouraged by the results.
So, this year I plan on keeping at it. My goal is to keep doing it and keeping a record of it so that hopefully I can see my improvement over the year.
Here is attempt one.
I used a reference right next to my image and I still couldn’t get things to look right. Ugh. Deep breath. It’s okay. This was just step one. I normally wouldn’t share pieces that turned out like this, but like I said, I am hoping to see improvement.
Here is Jane being the most lovely of helpers. She passed away shortly after this was taken, so even though the art sucks, it’s special to me because she “helped”.
Ooh. Thanks for the suggestion. I will look her up. I need to learn to let go and not try to control the paint so much. Argh, that is against my nature. Ha!
PS. Just looked her up. Wowza! She is amazing!
I think this lady is lovely! And it’s brave to post things you made that are “meh” to you. But believe me, there are others who will be impressed! (Like me!)
And I know Jane was your favorite foster. You took great care of her. She was in the very best hands she could have been in. I’m sorry you lost her, especially so soon.
Agree that it’s lovely! I do feel like certain subjects (flowers, landscapes) lend themselves better to watercolor than others. Even so, I feel exactly the same as you when I try to do any watercolor painting. The only projects I’ve felt remotely satisfied with, are ones that are actually mixed media: ink drawings with watercolor washes. I hope you enjoy your journey and continue to create projects using watercolors. And your helper looks very sweet. I’m sorry for your loss.
I think it looks lovely, although I understand that we can be so critical of ourselves as we learn things. Keep at it! You have a gorgeous start, and I expect you will be delighted with your progress at the end of the year!
Like this gal . This is honestly beyond anything I would realistically hope to be able to watercolor. I say that not to brush off your feelings about it – artists are allowed to want to be better – but just to reassure you that even your “doesn’t look right” looks great through other eyes.
I would love to combine some ink with watercolor, but what paper do they use? Don’t you have to use watercolor paper? I know for my markers, the paper is one of the most important things. So how in the heck do people combine these? I need to do a lot more research.
Back in the day, I used “India Ink” (not sure that’s the correct term today) on watercolor paper.
Oh! And my best-ever piece was a bird, done in this method.
I think this is AMAZING! If I showed you my attempt at watercolor you would laugh, or maybe cry
Yours is beautiful, I feel you’ve really mastered layering the ink, such as in the folds on the dress.
Check Michael’s page. They’re doing some online classes free. There is a lady (Mandy) on there that is really good. They have the classes archived on their YouTube page a couple of days after.
Mandy is really good in the way she instructs. Look in the descriptions for the ones on YouTube that have already passed and they will have printable patterns for them, if needed. My first class I took locally was such a dud.
I had no idea they did the video classes. They even had one on Copics! They had a bunch of watercolor ones. Thank you for the link!!!
I took a class from Michaels for knitting and it was terrible too. I took a day off of work to go with a friend and they completely forgot about the class, so I just wasted the day. Then they rescheduled and they put us in the back warehouse area and we took turns walking around the table every 10 minutes to keep the lights on. We were supposed to be making a cup sleeve. I paid $25 and they told me I would have to pay for another class (another $25) to come in and have them show me how to finish it. $50 for a cup sleeve? It was insane.
I mean come on.