Playing With Watercolor

So Todd purchased art kits at Christmas.

Austin got the drawing kit, Todd the oil painting

and I got the watercolor

(Poor neglected Lexx got nothing!).

 

It's taken a little while, but I finally tried

it out this past weekend.

I had taken a two day class about

20 years ago, but other than that,

I have no experience

(which is very obvious when you see the following pictures).

 

This is what the kit looks like.

It comes with watercolor paper, a book, watercolor pencils,

3 brushes, 2 pencils,  a sharpener,

a palette and 9 different watercolors.

 

I took some of the watercolor paper and a pencil,

and taped a drawing that I printed off the Internet to the window

and traced that baby.

Before tracing...

 

after tracing.

 

Then I took some colors and put them in the palette.

These colors came from the tube...

not the hard little palettes that you may

remember from childhood.

But like the childhood paint, you do add water.

Here were the colors I had to choose from.

 

I took my traced drawing and taped it to a flat surface.

Then I took some water and did a "wash".

After that I did a soft blue wash

(except around the rose - I couldn't  remember

 if I was supposed to color wash it or not).

 

Then I outlined where I had traced with a darker watercolor.

I think this was kind of a mess up, because I believe

watercolor is supposed to be more fluid

(ha, get it!) with less harsh lines.

 

Then I proceeded to color in the rose mixing paints

together to create colors that I liked.

 

This made the flower look 2d, and I wanted a

little more dimension, so I ended up

doinking with it a little more.

 

After about an hour of messing with the painting,

I got bored and declared my picture

Finished!

 

It's not really a masterpiece,

 but it wasn't a bad first try. 

I learned a few things:

practice blending, use more colors, etc.

 

It was a fun relaxing day.

I can foresee myself trying another

painting in the near future.

 

Have you tried watercolor before?

Do you have any hobbies that

you are wanting to take up again.