Lately I've been playing around with the old watercolors and it has been hit and miss with the results. It's been hit and miss because I've been experimenting with a new type of paper and I just tend to ruin things the more they don't turn out the way they were supposed too in my head. The new type of paper I've been using is hot press watercolor paper instead of the cold press, which I've been taught to use with an iron fist for watercolor since I first starting taking classes for it 20 years ago. The 1st two images are quick paintings I did of my daughter. The first one is on hot press paper (140lb) and was finished in about 20 minutes. The wet into wet technique and the dry brush work both responded well and my only complaint is that wet into wet is MUCH harder to control because the paper is so smooth. The major plus is because of the smooth paper you lose none of the images quality in the scan process. The second painting is on cold press paper (140lb as well) and it reacted just like I always remembered, the water goes wherever you want (for the most part) because of the slight texture in the paper. So besides a few mistakes I made with her hair I really liked how this one turned out. It is too large for a scanner so thats why I have a photo of it in it's frame. However, the cold press images I have scanned tend to seem a shade lighter than if you were looking at it in person and I'm not sure if it's because of the textured paper or my old scanner just sucked. Both paper stocks still warp at 140 lb so you have to get them under a flat surface with heavy weight after painting or you are stuck with the warped paper. If you try to fix it after it has set a couple of days you take the chance of getting creases and they look much worse. The second image is the first relatively big watercolor painting I've done in about 4 years and they just seem to be getting better... oh wait, I haven't gotten to the giant mess up at the bottom of the post yet.
The 3rd image is the inside of my new sketch book, I just decided to mess around with some markers and color pencils and I sort of liked the results.
So the last one... this thing has been annoying me for about 2 weeks now. I've even painted over it some more since this photo was taken (and have yet to fix it.. it seriously looks terrible now). I've been trying to get a more classical look in my work and this is the perfect example of why not fully planning out a painting will 90% of the time just completely screw up any possibility of it being any good. The other 10% is that time when free form experimentation just truly works and you make something that is just amazing... then you just kill yourself to try and repeat it( this is for me, other artists out there are the opposite. I have to plan to my skills). Medusa is lost in the curtains... the curtains just look terrible in general, they were a last second addition. I wanted this thing to have stark contrasts of light to dark with the characters popping out with the bright/ darker images and the background being kind of this off white marble look... then I added those curtains... I just thought they would make it look more like a throne room... oh well. I may fix it or re do the painting, or just call it a learning experience and move on.
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