Watercolor is hard...and every time I try it, well when I follow the rules instead of my guts and instinct, they look so bad it hurt! anyway, then I decided to just use the painting without using any pencil or pen to help me define the outside of the object and then paint it, kind of doodling, and although the result are not definable whatever that means, at least I tried it, it's just too bad I am using ordinary paper and Winsor and Newton Cotman watercolor series in tube, using oh what the name on the tube? OK I just know blue and then I add a little yellow ochre (it's really hard for me to remember the odd names, since we only know yellow, so whatever ochre means I guess it means it's darker than yellow (and have you ever heard of lemon yellow? wow the names of the paints boggle me!) I guess because I never live in US or anywhere in the world beside my small town or at least my undeveloped-yet-in-the-art country, so the name of paints are just sooo not-familiar. Anyway, here is the painting
Yeah, it's not really good, I paint it in a splash of inspiration when I want to go to bed and I suddenly have this inspiration to hone my skill in watercolor and just grabbed my pallete and and my drawing book (my drawing book not my watercolor pad) and then just jab at those left of paints on the well and dab and dab on the paper, to create leaves, and I left it off to dry and I just close my blanket over my sleeping bod and sleep, without looking at the result (my bedroom dark as a cavern). The next morning I was surprised! (well watercolor always surprise you, one of the book in Watercolor Tips and Tricks by David Norman once said what's so rewarding about pursuing watercolor painting and never give up even how hard it is at first, is because watercolor painting are so unpredictable, means what you see before the paints dry and what you got when the paint completely dry or on the next day is completely different one another sometimes it surprise you so much, while painting in oil color, what you see is what you got, no matter after a week I guess nothing change much, means oil painting is predictable, I guess, sorry because I am not a real expert here, I am just beginning to paint, anyway, the same thing happen to my doodling here, and I am just surprised the result is quite good the next morning, well until my Lil' Aisha who just found out the use of a marker and mark my leaves painting green!
Anyway don't stop trying, (to myself too) and just experimenting, well I am not experimenting much at the moment, hey wait! I remember, I am just experimenting, see it here in my self portrait using the same watercolor from W&N Cotman series, Lyra No.10 Round brush and 200 gsm watercolor pad.
I am using 2B Rotring pencil to sketch my self by looking at the mirror and then after I am satisfied with the sketching (or at least I forced my self to be satisfied with it because it does not look like me on the overall), I grabbed the pallete and the the round brush and started to put yellow wash on the highlight of my face, I am working wet-on-dry anyway because I hate primping my paper, and then I started to add a darker wash of red (not really dark, I dillute the paint with water and tested it on the clean surface of pallete before I put it on my face or the paper on the shadow and the darker part of my face like in the crest of my cheek the one that show off my face plumpiness, and then under the nose, the forehead and on the shadow under the neck. Next, while everything still wet and the yellow wash swallowed up by the darker red wash, I started to use blue (Winsor ultramarine I think) to add dots (not a wash) on the red because my face look bloodied and the red run amok on the paper surface to balance it, and then because it make my face look weird with the dark ultramarine patches, I try to fix it by adding the heavy mix of red and blue (to make a purple) and dab it on the face again, next I also add the yellow ochre on the ultramarine and alizarin crimsone (the red I use in here) to make a the brown skin of my face, I fail though because it just look like the paint I mix is more suitable for a leaf then on my face, so I stopped using the mix when I try it a little on my face, nex and the last I use the orange (I'll look at the tube later to see what's the official name, because all I know it's orange because I put it side by side with the red) and dab it right under the bottom lips, but what a disaster, because the orange so bright it hurt, I try to correct it using red, then I use prussian blue (the darkest blue I have) to paint on the eyes, the hair, the eyebrow and to distinguish my face and the neck, and then I just dab there right there and there to correct mistakes (although completely fail) and then because I left out the lips the last to paint, I try to paint it with very light red wash, but it looks not right because I have a dark lips almost darker than my skin, so I add a little purple, but still light wash, because I don't want my lips look to pronounce, but still fail, because I have to dab the paint and absorb it with tissue and in the end I just give up and let the lips be (as you can see on my painting). I put it on my facebook to share it with my family and a few friend I have and all of them Laughed Out Loud! LOL.
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