My first watercolour project
A project that helped me understand how to use watercolour.
Watercolour is not something completely new to me, I had some attempts in the past, but I was never happy with the results and each time I was struggling with it. The reason was that I didn't understand how watercolour works and how to use it. I mostly used it as I would use acrylic paint. :)) Recently, I have found a watercolour class on Skillshare by Yasmina Creates that finally provided me with the basic knowledge to start my watercolour journey and also enjoy each minute of painting.
Although I have to tell you that the result of the first exercise almost made me gave up. But how annoying is not to succeed in doing something, so I gave it another try. Here is my first and my second attempt on the first exercise.
The second one was something I was quite happy with so, I continued.
This exercise is about learning how to master some basic watercolour techniques like wet on wet, dry on wet, wet on dry, dry on dry, creating a flat wash and a gradient wash. Aren't they lovely?
Here are some close-ups on the first exercise.
The wet on dry technique. What else to paint if not leaves? :) Flowers? No, too complicated for now. The dry on wet looks to me as palm trees on the beach. :D
This one is the dry on dry technique. Well, I didn't manage to make it dry all way long, but I'm fine with that.
And here are some extra exercises: the frozen-like effect using salt on wet watercolour (This one is awesome! I would have never thought to give the salt such a fancy use.) also, some colour gradients and some dark clouds on a bright yellow sky just to fill the space.
And here it is! The class project, the feather, inspired by Yasmina's class project! I could have taken another reference but her feather was so awesome and inspiring. I remember that before I had started to work on the class exercises I took a look at the uploaded class projects and I thought that there is no way for me to paint anything like that. It seemed impossible. After finally understanding how watercolour works, I think I have managed to paint an amazing feather. I am quite impressed by myself. :)) That is why it is so essential to have such a good teacher around, like Yasmina. :) I highly recommend her Skillshare classes. And she is not paying me to say this. :)
The materials I have used for this project: a very old watercolour set, some Faber Castell round brushes (no. 4 and 6), a flat brush to wet my paper and create the flat and gradient washes, 160 g/m2 watercolour paper since that was what I had (300 gr/m2 was recommended) and a Uni-Ball Signo Broad white pen for extra highlights.
So what I have learned doing this project, besides understanding the basics of using watercolour? Well, I think that I have learned to always give a second try to things and not to give up at my first insuccess, because failure is not a bad thing as society mostly teaches us, is only a step to make things better, to improve. And how beautiful things can be created by constantly trying to get better!
I have found Skillshare a wonderful place to learn and improve my skills and knowledge. They always have offers for a free trial period, so check it out.
Now that I am almost mastering the art of watercolour I was thinking to use it for colouring my illustrations and why not combining it with coloured pencils, but creating a watercolour paint from scratch is also amazing and I want to do that too. Follow me on my Instagram @agotapop for more watercolour projects and colouring. If you are a fan of ink illustrations check out my other account @agotapopillustration there, I also post new colouring pages that are available on my Etsy shop.
All the images in this blog post are creations of Agota Pop, based on Yasmina Creates Skillshare class Anyone Can Watercolor: The basics for Creating Magical Pieces.
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