Thursday Watercolor Practice

   Good morning Friends 

      I was so relieved we did not get the severe weather Tuesday evening through Wednesday evening. We are getting loads of rain though which is always a good thing. Some years in Missouri summers we will be hot and dry with no rain at all for weeks on end.  There will be flooding though here near the rivers and low areas, which is why this is called the Ozarks all the hills and valleys.

    I got caught up on laundry Wednesday, finished putting away my large food trip on Tuesday which except for a few fresh items we will be good for almost a month or so.

  Monday when I was digging up weeds after helping Larry move more of those heavy concrete tiles-that evening I could hardly use my good hand-what a "pain"  It felt better Tuesday morning but then after getting all the items walked down the hill and steps (good exercise for sure) my hand and arm were hurting again. Same Wednesday morning good until after I did some housework.

  I think it is always going to be something as we get older, just the way of it. Was not going to let that deter me from my watercolor play time though, which I am really enjoying.

  I had decided in 2020 I wanted to try painting, tried acrylics and also watercolor. So far I am enjoying the watercolors the best. The acrylics are a bit too bright and bold for me I think. I may need to pass those paints on to someone if I don't plan to use them.

  After working in the mixed media Canson spiral book, I decided I need to use watercolor papers instead. Back in 2020 I did pick up several different spiral notebooks for painting in different sizes and a couple mixed media spirals too for journal play etc. Rediscovered a small watercolor book that I had done several paintings in-forgot about those.  So next time I will work in that book.

I am working out of the same book I shared last week, I will for awhile, as many of the exercises are using the watercolor inks, and these are giving me more confidence while practicing. This book being a spiral is just so much nicer to learn from.  

Since Easter is coming up I decided on the bunny for practice This one is using the black ink watered down for shading

This time though I decided to grab my watercolors and paint a background first, this is when I decided I needed to use watercolor papers next session

  Back in 2020 I hunted around for something to use for my watercolors. After watching allot of videos I looked for this type, and I love it. I had learned instead of working out of the watercolor tubes there is much less loss of paint to add them to a pallet like this, and let them dry, and then use this way. This case will fold out flat for lots of paint mixing. Really loving using this set up very much.

   Following a calligraphy site, the instructor likes to use pretty china or crystal cups to hold her water. I didn't want to use any of the few china cups I have, but found this vintage little pitcher to use. It is perfect since it is the right size and very heavy so shouldn't tip over easily 

   

  This mixed media page is curling so I have it weighed down with a heavy book at the moment.

  I usually like to just jump right in on any art-craft project and not think too much, just go with the flow. After my first sheep though, I decided to do a practice bunny while the background dries completely.

  and I love it Not too bad for me-a no painter haha

  When I had picked up the described watercolor paint set up, I also picked up something smaller to see which one I would like.  This is a little tin case and the little pans have magnets on the bottoms.  Wow, this will be perfect for watercolor inks. I had also in my reading, learned that these inks will dry as well like the watercolors, so just need to add water to them-less waste. 

These are my watercolor inks I just got in the  mail-such cute little packages. I love them, that bottle was a gift of blue ink when I bought a straight dip pen

  In my stash I found this plastic case that fits perfect for these little boxes of ink.

  After our main meal around 2 in the afternoon, I went to work on my piece. Doing a background first I didn't think about the bunny not having that white space as part of his body-instead he has the background color haha  I will need to figure out how to handle the backgrounds better. any suggestions or tutorials you like online? thanks

  Thinking I should have waited til I was feeling a little fresher, but I managed to save this bunny.  Painting this one with the black ink once the background watercolor page was really dry I had no issues with bleeding. 

    I messed up and put the eyes in the wrong spot. I did remember a tutorial I had watched to keep adding water to lift the paint off-this was very black in the middle of the face so a decent save.

I may go back in tomorrow morning and add a little more in the middle of his face

   I have a few ideas of what I want to add to this, or maybe I will just leave this practice page as done and move on.

  Any suggestions always welcome-I am a total novice