So now that I am painting again, I realize that no matter how long I do it, I'm still going to be goofing up, and learning, and having paintings I really like, and others that are just meh. I'm trying not to get TOO discouraged when a painting turns out less than awesome, because you can get stuck in a doom loop and stop painting, which I am hoping to avoid.
Here's today's effort:
Because I always want to be transparent about these things, you should know that virtually everything I paint is copied from an example I find in various places on the internet or in books. So far, I am in no way an original artist.
Here's the example I was working from today:
I'm always trying to reproduce the colors in the example, for very often, it's the colors that attract me to it in the first place. Only thing is, I don't have the same palette as the original artist, so it's a game to see how close I can get with what I have.
Though I am not thrilled with my rendition of this painting, there are PARTS that I love. And this is the aspect of watercolor that is very hard to describe, and quite difficult to control all the time... that is blending. Or predicting what the watercolor is going to do when you put the brush to the paper. Is the paper wet already? Or dry? How wet? How far will your paint 'bleed' into another color? You never REALLY know until it's too late and you hope you can mop it up and start over, or you think you are a freaking watercolor genius. Usually it's the former. But once in a while you put your brush on the paper, and you can WATCH the magic happen. It ALWAYS surprises me and I try to say to myself, "That's what I meant to do." But really, it's more like "That's what I hoped it would do." 🤣
In this area of the painting... that magical stuff happened. The colors blended in a very pleasing way and did what I hoped they would.
A seamless blending of three or four colors that makes me very happy. Even if the overall exercise was not as good as I hoped. This part is like the hook that keeps me trying, that keeps me hoping, that one day I will be a master at KNOWING what is going to happen when that brush touches the paper.
But for now, it's surprises. Good ones and not so great ones.
I wanted to document both.
