In January, after I had decided that I wanted to be more creative this year, my sister challenged me to learn watercolour. I like a good challenge so, yeah, I was going to take it on.
I had previously bought some watercolour paints, but for years they have been stashed away in the depths of my paint supplies box. Untouched. I have had experience painting with acrylics before but working with watercolour was a whole different kettle of fish.
Before tackling anything new, I like to do a bit of research to learn techniques on how to approach a task. That generally means looking up tutorials on Youtube. I came across some introductory tutorials by kelogsloops which turned out to be a great resource on how to get started and learn how the medium works. And then I watched a whole heap of timelapse videos of him painting and I was totally mesmerised and inspired - I was ready to pick up the brush again. Seriously his work is amazing - and he's Australian too!
For my very first attempt at learning how to use the medium and blend colours into gradients, I tried a simple maple leaf.
To continue to practice, when I came across an event with friends I would use that as an opportunity to paint something. That way it would give me a theme or subject that I could work with. Below are all the paintings that I did this year.
Welcome Miso
Our friends had welcomed a new puppy to their family so I thought it would be cute to create a painting where she and my dog Yuki would be best friends. Lettering with a paint brush was a lot more challenging than using pens.
Watercolour sessions
A watercolour session event was held at Central Park, so I invited Chibi with me to go check it out. It was basically an opportunity to try out some watercolour supplies at the art store. They had a mixture of watercolour paints, pencils and pens. After trying them out, I found that I'm still most comfortable using paints.
Woodland animal paintings
My biggest project yet, to welcome the arrival of Belinda's first child, I wanted to paint something for her to put up in her nursery. After finding out that she was looking at having a woodland animals theme, I got to work and painted these four characters. I'm still focused on learning technique over character creation so these guys were inspired by what I had found on Pinterest.
Baby shower card
I was invited to another baby shower and thought I would try creating a personalised card. On the Facebook invite, Cath had called the baby "Baby P", and knowing Alex liked superman, I thought it would be cool to do a little superman onesie. This was a mixture of watercolour paints and felt tip pen.
Christmas cards
After the success of the baby shower card, I continued the idea of creating my own cards for Christmas.
There is still so much for me to learn: from how to control the water, to how much water I need to dilute my paint to create highlights and shading. From working fast enough before the paint dries, deciding whether I want to stay clean within lines, or be expressive in my strokes to also learning to control the pressure of my brush.
“Painting is such a therapeutic practice for me.”
Even though I do not keep any of my works, it makes me so happy hearing when others appreciate my work and the effort it takes to create them. I'm thinking of maybe creating works to sell. Do you think they're good enough for people to want to buy them?
