Stretching outside my comfort zone

I thought I’d take it easy during the Direct Watercolor challenge and just paint subjects that were easier for me to work in direct watercolor, but I’m wanting to (on most days) stretch outside that comfortable space and do more challenging stuff.

I love painting bustling spaces full of people. It’s a hard subject for direct watercolor. (but it can be done, have you seen Marions Rivolier’s work?) So I gave it a shot this week at my local In-N-Out Burger. I did 2 sketches, the first one in brushpen and watercolor, the second in direct watercolor.

This is the first one, in a technique I work in quite frequently. Gotta love the Pentel Pocket brushpen, it’s so great for drawing quickly and boldly.

And this next one in direct watercolor.

With both pieces I knew it was important for me to capture the energy of the place. Both techniques capture it differently in my opinion, and I am surprised by what I could do with #2. That said, #2 was much harder for me to work on and even working quickly took atleast twice as long as #1. Which is fine if I have the time and am generally just capturing the feel of a space, but it is a big consideration for me when I’m doing more reportage-style sketching and trying to capture a fleeting story.

I also think my way of working in line and color is more literal: I can tell the stories of particular people, capture gestures and details I can’t in direct watercolor. But direct watercolor does capture mood really effectively.

Now to figure how to get the best of both worlds in one piece… I think I’ll save that problem for another day though!

You can join the Direct Watercolor group on facebook here. When you post, tag your work with #30x30DirectWatercolor2018