Day 18 and 19: Direct Watercolor Challenge

I find it easiest to direct watercolor subjects that are either
1) forgiving as drawings ( like landscapes and flowers)
or
2) that I know and understand well

And though faces aren’t the easiest to draw, I draw my kids a lot. So painting my daughter in direct watercolor makes sense since I’ve drawn her so much, I understand what I want to capture about her and what I can afford to not capture exactly and still get a likeness down.

Day 18 #30x30DirectWatercolor2019
Kavya in Brights

But I don’t think it made sense for me to try and capture this doggie in direct watercolor. Because
a) I don’t understand dog anatomy well ( Thank you Heather Martin for letting me draw this cutie!)
b) Adding in reverse painting made this even harder.
While I enjoyed the color play, I could’ve made this so much easier on myself and more importantly, painted so much more freely if I had an underdrawing.

Like every technique, direct watercolor is fantastic for some things, but not for everything 🙂

I really enjoyed doing a little over a half month of the challenge, but life has gotten too hectic for me to prioritize it for the rest of the month. Time to switch gears and focus on my two workshops in Amsterdam in just a few weeks (and a family vacation coming up next week).

I might squeeze another few pieces and do a wrapup post towards the end of the month, but I’ll be back to journalling and pen & ink sketching for now. Its been a fantastic challenge, even though I just did half of it, and a great learning experience.