Funnily enough, although I’m not especially comfortable with using colour in my work, watercolours are the first medium I ever used growing up (aside from coloured pencils). I got introduced to watercoulours in kindergarden, during an activity in which we had to use salt with it to create a nice effect. I used to have such a blast doing any kind of creative activity back in the days! Iu every activity I did. When I told my parents about watercolours, they bought me a cheap palette thinking that I would grow bored of it. Turns out I didn’t. I loved messing around with it and learning new techniques. However, I had really thin paper that would break after some layers of paint. 🙁
Paper is key
You know how they always tell you that you don’t need much to make art? Well, to some extent I agree with that claim. I mean, my art nowadays is mostly pencil because I grew up using thin paper and it was the medium that worked the best with it. However, for more detailed and coloured work, I do believe that you need to at least invest in thicker paper. I remember I used to get so frustrated whenever I worked on a painting for long and the paper would break in the most detailed part of it. I ended up getting better paper, but it takes some getting used to. Lately, whenever I use watercolours, I mostly use it as a base and add details and depth with coloured pencils. That’s what I did with my watercoulour portaits series.
It’s one of the most time-consuming works I’ve done. Probably, part of it was due to my inexperience using colour. I had to redo a lot of layers, especially for the portrait of the redhead, because I couldn’t get her colours right. However, I had lots of fun doing that. The middle one was the most fun. I feel like the model, a random girl I found on pinterest, did most of the work though. Since the picture was with flash, her skin looked especially bright so I didn’t have to bother with skin colour too much. Lastly, the portrait of the man, was the most difficult for me. I guess I wasn’t too comfy with the angle of his face.,
In the end, I’m pretty happy with how the three portraits ended up looking like. Now that you know a bit more about this work, I hope you enjoy it too!
