Watercolor's Satisfying gives

Study of my foot (Wet-in-wet).

I was reading Understanding Comics from Scott McCloud (I am also an inspiring comic artist, ha ha but never have a comic made yet) when I see one of the comic panels in his book that said that as a painter or artist who want to succeed everyone have to work really hard, as hard as any writer who want to publish a good book, as the same as a comic artist you have to work really hard, only focus on your work, practice, practice and practice, that's why then I tried to to treat my watercolor journey the same, practice practice and practice, and because I already experience the harsh condition when drawing and painting outside, and rather than delay it any longer I choose my foot as the object of my painting, so here it is. At first I was so dissappointed, well because it does not look like a foot and it looks flat, so then rather than swallowed up in my disappointment, I laid it down on my carpet and let it dry, expecting it to be really bad, and what a surprise, when it all dried up and the paints merge up with one another, wow, at least it looks finally like a foot to me, he he...I was so excited, that's true what expert say, watercolor give you such a satisfying and exhilarating feeling when you never gave up!

Anyway, first I sketch my foot lying prone on my single bed at night before I went to sleep, and because sketching and drawing with the right or accurate proportion always elude me, before I tear the watercolor pad, I put my finished foot sketch and went to sleep. The next day, I grab an eraser and tried to loose the lines that help me to sketch and after I am quite satisfied (I am not satisfied at all as usual, but because the point now is to paint and not to draw) I then take my watercolor pad to paint in my own bedroom-turn-studio to paint, I put the palette on my bed after spraying on with the spraying bottle at the left-off paints (I put half from the tube straight at my palette so I won't have to squeeze paint now and then) to water it down, and then I started to put the first light wash of red (very light) to indicate the sole of my foot, and then because it looks weird so I wash all the foot with light wash of red, because I would put a darker wash anyway. Oh I spray on the watercolor pad, so I was working wet-in-wet, wow I do sound like a watercolor artist now ha ha, anyway after the light wash of red still wet, I dab the usual ultramarine on the shadow (the tip of my foot and the how do we say the part of foot visible from an open shoes when you walk? instep?) and then because I have a dark skin just like any Asian who live in the line of the tropic, I add a wash with more red paint on my round brush and then dab it with yellow (a lot of yellow on the brush), so I could achieve the brown looking mix I am suppose to have when I mix red, blue and yellow, but as usual, because watercolor so unpredictable, I only got dark green to grayish green that not a natural color of a foot, so I add more blue and red. In the end, still not satisfied I try to fix it, add yellow here, add Prussian blue on the shadows, try to make wrinkles with a rigger brush, but does not work so I dab it and with a damp brush loaded with water to merge the so garish line from the rigger from the wrinkles, and then I add a yellow wash on the bed my foot lying upon, and then put a very light wash of ultramarine blue or was it darker blue I was never sure to make the spread green, but because I was not brave enough afraid that I would not be able to distinguish the spread and my foot (because I was using practically the same color, yellow, ultramarine and red on the spread and on the foot) I only add a very light wash of blue and in the end because the yellow are already dried, the spread still looked yellow instead of green when I added the ultramarine wash.

And then I worked on the fingers, I use load of ultramarine blue on my brush (again I am using no. 10 Lyra synthetic brush) to define the toes, and then I use Prussian blue (the darkest blue for you) to paint the nails, because same on me my foot's not very pretty and the nails broken and looks black, so I use the darkest blue for it. And thank god, the dark blues I use on the toes finally define my toes finger...