It’s been a little while since I posted anything. Between the day job and the house getting torn up and put back together (long, boring story), I haven’t had a lot of spare energy for creativity. I had a day off recently though and took my camera to a local park for some nature photography.
It’s been cold out. There has been precipitation. This brings the promise of a spring with a haze of green over the desert and great waves of wildflowers, but they’re not here yet. For now, there are snow-capped peaks, dry grasses, and a few birds in the bare, budding trees.
Perfect time to break out the watercolors, right? I haven’t painted with watercolors in a good long while. Since 2007, if memory serves. That’s…an alarmingly long time ago. 17 years. I could have had a child and that child could have graduated from high school in the time since I last tried to use watercolors.
And it shows. Here’s my first attempt:
Eh.
I mean, it’s recognizably a bird.
The video above is my second and third attempts to paint this fellow:
Success is mixed.
Watercolors are difficult because the whole point is that part of your medium is the paper itself. It matters a lot what paper you use because the paper dramatically affects how the water and pigment moves and settles. You’re also using the color of the paper as your brightest whites. You don’t paint the brights in over top; you paint the shadows where they need to go. You’re painting the negative, not the positive space. It’s confusing to wrap your head around when you’re used to building up layers with acrylics or blending colors with oils.
Sometimes warping the way you think about things can be helpful. This goes for the day job as well. If looking at the problem head on isn’t working, try looking around the edges. Paint into the shadows and see what pops out. It can be surprising what’s been there the whole time.
Yndiri Creates 
Leave a comment