An unhealthy obsession with watercolours...

So I may have an unhealthy obsession with watercolours....*winks*

I can pinky swear that I have not bought any watercolours since my trip to Japan earlier this year .... but that's because I bought a whole lot when I was there *see picture for evidence*.

Yes, that's just the stash I got in Japan...I also have the German Schmincke, the French Sennelier, the American Daniel Smith...and a whole lot of those craft-grade stuff too. Hence, an unhealthy obsession with watercolours.

What watercolours offer is the captivating interplay of brilliantly transparent pigments in water spreading over white watercolour paper. Sometimes you lose control of them like in my eye painting when I spilled water over the iris when it was still wet...*dramatic music plays in the background*.

Purists say that it is an unforgiving medium because when you go too dark, it is hard to "lift" the pigment off the paper. And that the white should not be painted in as an afterthought, it should be the white from the paper. Yes, you have to control the amount and flow of water, the transparency of the pigments and keep parts of the paper white.

Luckily, I'm a mixed media kind of girl so I saved my painting with coloured pencils and a white acrylic marker....who has time to apply masking fluid, right? *LOL*

What about you? What is your unhealthy obsession??

Pin It

A sad girl in watercolour...

Meet my sad girl in watercolour. At least this time, it was intentional. *winks*

Of late, my drawn/painted girls have started to look the same to me and I wanted to challenge myself to try something different.

And of course, try it in just one medium - watercolour.

Which was quite challenging for me since I always use one medium on top of another to cover up my mistakes. *LOL*

Still lots of room for improvement but at least she looks a little different from the other girls in my art journal. :) 

Happy week ahead friends! 

Pin It

For the love of watercolours....

These days, I've been a little obsessed with watercolours. You won't believe how many books I've read or how many YouTube videos I've watched...and I'm still pretty terrible at harnessing the magic of watercolours. 

The beauty of watercolours lies in the transparency and luminosity of the pigments. They lose their lustre when you "overplay" with them. Which is what I tend to do...*sigh* 

The key is to build up the colours layer by layer...and to keep practising...

Meanwhile, I'll enjoy the process of growing my watercolour collection...*winks* 

Pin It