Gnome of the Day & Thoughts on Experimenting

Gnome, a photo by megan_n_smith_99 on Flickr.

Today I did very little, which was exactly what I needed. I drank some tea, read a bit, drew a bit, and really was generally fairly ineffectual. I read some stupid stuff on line. That's really not (generally) as satisfying as reading a book, but on an aimless day I suppose it does not matter too much.

I experimented a bit with watercolor, and was not entirely happy with the results (this gnome was not from today, it's from a couple weeks ago.) Anyway, I shall try some layering and see what I think.

With watercolor sometimes if you do something you don't care for, you can go back with a wet wash and, either just plain water or you can also use a sponge or paper towel and pick up some color. And sometimes you can glaze over the top. Or you can go over with ink, pencil, or colored pencil. It's not like acrylic, though, where you can just sort of cover things up and start over. --

(i just interrupted that thought to go spill some loose earl grey tea and now my kitchen smells great.)

-- so i find that sometimes that makes me less inclined to want to experiment, and that's not so great. experimenting is good. one needs to spend some time doing it, even if the results are not always what one wanted. I may try going over today's work with a bit of white gauche, but it will take several layers to get a surface I want to work on. And you need to make sure it is dry between layers unless you want colors to sort of bleed through.

Ironically most people tell me they don't like watercolor as much as acrylic because they can't control it. i find i have a much easier time controlling watercolor than i do acrylics - i just have not spent as much time with acrylics and my brush technique is not as good. and i think i will always love watercolors the most. there is something special about them. you can control them (with patience and care) or you can let them surprise you, and more and more I am trying to do both in the same painting, in different areas.

The gnome seen here is:
Daniel Smith watercolor,
white prismacolor,
pitt artist pens in B & S, in several colors,
& White gel pen.

& the photo was taken with my iphone and manipulated in Instagram.

I have discovered I like the sort of fuzzy halo I can get by adding a bit of white colored pencil over watercolor.

Whatever your favorite media is, I hope you won't be afraid to experiment now and then.