Watercolor Wednesday 13

This weekend I was away from the house and absolutely could not find a suitable container for holding water. It was looking dire (for watercolors, not anything else, thankfully) but then at the last moment a tiny old cooking pot was unearthed. The show WOULD GO ON!

Anyway—this week's painting is a tad more ambitious than the last couple of paintings, if only because it actually takes up an entire sheet of paper and I probably spent more time on the background than anything else.

As usual, I roughed out the drawing on the computer, traced it off and refined it on paper. I wasn't feeling too confident over what the color scheme and lighting would be, so I roughed that out in Photoshop as well.

Space, and depressed-looking animals. I swear to god this isn't an obsession.
And, as usual, I started painting with the tones and shading. After some time had passed it occurred to me that once again I had forgotten to do something vital: tape down the paper so it wouldn't warp.

Any tape will do as long as it isn't terribly sticky—you don't want the adhesive to damage the paper, for obvious reasons. The masking tape can also be useful for blocking out large areas of color that you don't want to run into the details of your picture.

The tissues, dear reader, are for tears. Or, ah, dabbing away unwanted paint. Whatever floats your boat!
The final product ended up coming out quite a bit different than I anticipated. I opted out of making the lower half of the background quite so dark, mostly because I liked the interplay of the reds and greens and didn't want to mute them.

Now with added lichen!
Of course, there are still a few things here and there that could stand to be touched up. Sometimes it's good to distance yourself from your work for a day, so that when you go back to it you have a clearer vision of what you need to do with it.

Watercolor Wednesday 12

Over the past couple of weeks I've been slooooooowly working towards getting some more paintings done. One attempt was derailed by a trek out to my boyfriend's old hometown for a wedding (and subsequently having to babysit his parents' unruly puppy), and another was vanquished by sheer laziness.

Then, miraculously, I found myself bored enough to get some work done earlier this week! This particular painting is of some characters I've been doodling for a little while now: a rotund dopey-looking fairy, a perpetually alarmed goblin and... whatever the heck the vaguely owly thing is. I did a rough layout in photoshop and traced it onto paper using a light blue pencil, where I proceeded to fix up the drawing and add the details I had missed.

These are developmental sketches for the goblin guy and his creepy friend. The little girl with the squid hat is my interpretation of one of these cat doodles.


And here's the finished product. My goal for this painting was to get more contrast and vibrancy out of the colors, which is something I've been struggling with for a while. Subtle color gradations and shading are, surprisingly, the easiest thing to get with watercolors—all you need is a bit of tissue paper to take away unwanted pigment.

Here's another painting I finished shortly after the first one. I used the same method as before, sketching out a rough guide and then tracing it off onto the paper. This time I didn't fuss with the lineart as much before I started painting, and I think I like it a little more because of that.

Watercolor Wednesday 11

For the last couple of weeks I've found myself unable to make myself sit down and finish any paintings, but luckily I have a small backlog of pictures in various degrees of completion.

The genesis of this painting is a little unclear to me: about a year ago my boyfriend and I had a small brainstorming session where we decided to sketch out ideas for a spaghetti western with campy monsters. Nothing really came of it, but to this day I still find myself drawing cowboy mummies ever so often.

Little Red Riding Hood, as a goat, heads towards the void where her grandmother's house should be, but isn't, because I got distracted either by food or something shiny. I added a bit of goauche to her cloak and some of the shadows since the watercolors were getting a bit muddy.

I'm not sure what to make of this one! I started painting the creepy ratty guy first, and then just kind of tacked on the bee.

When I find myself in an artistic rut I like to take some time to find some new source of inspiration. Most recently I've taken up reading collections of short stories by Ray Bradbury, whose work is always a wellspring of unusual ideas.

I also tried out using this neat little flash application that randomly generates topics from three wheels of words. The results range from intriguing to downright weird, and I'd suggest that anyone with a bad case of artist's block try it out!

Watercolor Wednesday 10

I am endlessly amused by critters with stout, rotund bodies on stilt-like legs. As I drew this picture it became a laundry list of things that, for whatever curious reason, I think are absolutely hilarious.


A list of them follows:
1. cyclops!
2. pathetic little wisps of hair
3. CHEST HAIR (funnier on scrawny little guys, but still funny otherwise)
4. fancy shoes
5. apprehension
6. tall pants with suspenders

This picture was also an exercise in figuring out which pens work on my crappy handmade paper. The answer: most of them, except for the ones I want to use. Thanks for that, paper!

Watercolor Wednesday 9

After painting the carrot guy for the last watercolor wednesday, I decided he needed an overly confident friend! And, uh, a rudimentary background. Featureless voids make me uneasy!


For this entire week I've been getting ideas for paintings just as I drift off to sleep. It's the worst thing ever because they are burned into the back of my mind, even if they are terrible or half-baked. Angry cactus guy (above) is the result of one of those late night ideas, and I assume he's scowling because of how hastily he was painted! This is an approximation of the painting process:

1. Sketched out drawing. Was pretty okay with it.
2. Suddenly developed violent hatred for sketch, scrapped it altogether.
3. Whipped out watercolor paper, scrawled out a totally different composition.
4. Started painting, began to realize the darker shades of green were totally not working out the way I wanted them to.
5. Put painting out of my line of sight. Glanced at it once in a while, hating it from afar.
6. Finished painting by adding spines and little details here and there.

Once again, the moral of the story is BE PATIENT, STUPID. I will learn from my mistakes someday! 

What typical process do you usually go through for a painting or drawing?

Watercolor Wednesday 8

Hey there, readers! This week I've been fussing around with mixing watercolors with other mediums. This page was the result of trying to use gouache paint along with the standard watercolors. It was also the result of falling asleep on a bus and waking up with the thought "lumberjacks are HILARIOUS! I will draw them."

Here's a series of mini-paintings, all mysteriously facing the same direction. I think next time I use pen on a painting I'll use a sepia tone instead of black.

Lastly, an uncomfortable man-carrot. When I was a wee lass, I felt compelled to obsessively draw anthropomorphic food. I drew reams of comics about the denizens of a fridge. Thankfully I've moved onto, well, other obsessions, but I still think vegetables are adorable. If they had cheeks, I'd pinch them!

Watercolor Wednesday 7

In preparation for a somewhat complicated painting, I whipped out my sketchbook and got down to some serious doodling. This one's going to (in theory) be on different layers of paper, perhaps even different kinds of paper! Pictured here are the sketches for the layout, with some notes on the layering, and some unrelated doodles of critters and an outlandish rock carving. An owl with antlers? BALDERDASH AND POPPYCOCK!

Finally, here's a quick painting I did last night while mulling over some designs for bird-monsters. I did it a bit too hurriedly and so the color is muddy in some places and just plain weird looking in others, but overall I'm happy with it as an experiment of sorts.

Watercolor Wednesday 6

Last week, a friend of mine insisted that I watch Disney's 1941 version of The Reluctant Dragon. The results were disastrous, as immediately after watching it I found myself doodling scads of goofy, effeminate serpents. I settled on one I really liked and then, for reasons I will never be able to truly comprehend, decided that I wanted to add tons and tons of details.



Treasure, for example—After drawing a number of piles of coins, it occurred to me that although drawing lots and lots of the same thing over and over again is a bit aggravating, it would be even more aggravating to paint those things. I scoured the portion of my mind that values shiny material possessions for ideas, and failing that, I did an image search for "treasure." It didn't help!

So now there's STILL a ton of coins all over, but I'm not going to pull my hair out when I get around to painting them. ...Maybe. We'll see.


So! Here it is, in all its unfinished glory. When I go into these paintings lately I like to test out the colors on a scrap of paper, which is helpful when I'm trying to come up with a color scheme or figure out how I'm going to layer the paint. I was initially hesitant to paint the guy purple, but then I slowly came to the realization that there is no other color more appropriate for narcissistic fantasy creatures!

Watercolor Wednesday 5

Aside from a number of early Fleischer Brothers cartoons that proudly wore their insanity on their sleeves, one of my biggest artistic inspirations is TEETH. Maybe it has something to do with the way they affect our perception of other people, sometimes more so than other prominent facial features.

This week's picture was another exercise in slowly building up lots of layers of color. It helps to first apply water to large areas that you want to fill with the same color, and for some reason I routinely forget this! It's not as alarming as I'd like it to be (if you find that hard to believe I don't blame you) but there's always next time!

Watercolor Wednesday 4

Hello there, readers! Last week I felt a sudden surge of inspiration that made me feel unusually and wonderfully ambitious. Naturally, the universe then saw fit to strike me down for my hubris by giving me a nasty head cold that was going around work.




Anyway: I started off with a slew of doodles. The guys in the bottom left corner bear a passing resemblance to my dog! Not much came from this page, just a lot of tossing ideas around on paper.




Onto the second page of doodles: mostly creepy cartoon animals (surprise!) and, if you squint, a teeny tiny gestural doodle of a dancing rollerblading guy that lives in my neighborhood—whom I affectionately refer to as "Rollerblade Dancer." I finally settled on "stuffed animals playing cards" for the actual drawing I was going to finish up and paint, and that's what the larger drawing on this page is from.




For this week's painting I decided to avoid the hassle of erasing a ton of construction lines! The paper I use doesn't take to erasers very well, so I always end up with at least a few faint smudges here and there. I sketched out the images until I was happy with them, and then traced them onto watercolor paper using a light table. I have absolutely no idea why I didn't try this sooner, as it worked like a charm! No fussing around with erasers at all.


Technique-wise, I didn't do a lot of new things with this piece besides dabbing the paint on to create a mottled fabric look on the lion. I'm probably going to paint more of these guys in the future and try arranging them in front of some sort of background.

Watercolor Wednesday 3

I am sorely out of practice at drawing human anatomy. Clever readers may have inferred this from the complete lack of human beings gracing Watercolor Wednesday thus far!

Never fear: it's time for a sketchbook adventure!


I pulled out a small moleskine sketchbook and made some attempts to bust out of my doodling funk. When in doubt of where to start, I draw cowboys. I don't know why, but it's a good way to break the ice. Sometimes I start off with the occasional hag. And, in this case, the top half of The Phantom's face.


The results of sketching with watercolors this time around: a bunch of disembodied heads, one of which is filing for separation from her neck.


Eventually the allure of drawing people in period costume and heads floating in empty space wore off and I went back to drawing angry cartoon animals. The fellow on the right is supposed to be leaping over a train seat but instead it looks like he's angrily dancing or stretching, neither of which sound like safe activities for someone wearing an eye patch! Be careful, crazed anthropomorphic rabbit.

Watercolor Wednesday 2

The weather in Chicago goes through a number of radical changes during the transition from one season to the next. Last week we experienced blistering cold, and at some point during the past couple of days it shot into summer and then reverted back into fall.

In honor of this temporary fallback (PUNS!) I painted this scene to remind me of milder weather—the kind that does not make me feel like I should crumple under the weight of infomercials and purchase a Snuggie.


For this one the trees were the first to be drawn and painted, followed by the birds and then the faint silhouettes of trees in the background. I've been painting on handmade cotton paper from a class I took a couple of years ago. They give me an interesting texture to work with, but since some of them were loft dried, they've warped a bit and have a tendency to scan with messed-up light levels and colors that aren't quite right.

My solution?

Textures! In this case, an understated paper texture with a faint yellow tint, placed over the original image as a "color burn" layer in Photoshop. It's a quick, easy fix that can help the feel of your work.

Watercolor Wednesday 1

Hello, and welcome to Watercolor Wednesday! I'm Snoozy, and this week I'm going to walk you through the steps I take to complete a small painting.

First, the sketch: When I start off I sometimes find myself intimidated by the sheer blankness of the paper in front of me. To dispel my anxiety, I drew a small frame, followed by the miserable bird-person and his immediate surroundings. Then I confronted my arch nemesis, Perspective, with a series of frantic lines.



This is what I like to refer to as the "I don't know what's going on!" stage of the drawing. Around this time I realize that I've forgotten what something looks like, or my brain and hands are suddenly not on speaking terms. Backgrounds aren't exactly my strong suit, but I managed to sketch out what vaguely resembles the interior of a restaurant, apparently named "Eats."

Here I've taken a few cautious steps into adding shadows to the picture. Most of the construction lines have been removed for this stage.

After the shadows I tackled the large areas of color in a series of light layers. Then, after gently erasing some of the darker pencil lines, I used a thinner brush to more clearly define the outlines and details such as the pattern on the tables.

In retrospect, I could have done with more planning - the composition is too centered, and the figure in the background is stiff and lifeless. Why is she staring across the table if there's no one else there? Did the waitstaff neglect to bring her a menu?

For a long time I was reluctant to take up watercolor painting. It took time to build up the patience to use them after becoming so used to the shortcuts offered by painting programs. How do you approach a medium you're new to? Do you find you prefer working on digital or real media art?