Paintings

I haven't posted for almost a year, holy smokes!

I'd like to start using my online spaces again. After I stood up to my dad and stopped feeling obliged to listen to him, I quickly discovered that I have more time for myself. Job is causing me grief at the moment because the boss isolated me from all of my favourite co-workers. This makes me really sad, we were such a great team and I've grown very attached to them... Now I just sit alone under his supervision. I took 2 days off to gather my thoughts and rest. I definitely needed that.

I organised all of my watercolour palettes yesterday and dug up some paintings along the way. I stopped posting that stuff on Ko-fi a good while ago and accumulated 20 doodles that weren't shared anywhere yet. They can go on here now! I arranged them in chronological order (with one exception at the end):

 

 

This is the first painting I finished and didn't throw away, haha! Painted with my very first set of watercolours that weren't intended for children. I was really inexperienced back then, but I also strongly disliked the paints for how they handled and I ended up selling them.

 

Painted with my second watercolour set, this one I absolutely fell in love with. I moved on to artist grade paints since then, but I still like these a lot ;___; I'm sure I will use them up sooner or later since they're a pleasure to work with - heck, they even outperform some brands that label themselves as professional!

 

Painted this to test out a particular shade of grey. I'm always on the lookout for nice, neutral greys as I want to paint boatswain without having to mix my own grey from scratch every time. Truly neutral greys are difficult to come by in this field 'cos they often have a green pigment in them.

 

 

I hate how dirty this one is but I wanted to include it since this was my first attempt at shading!

 

I despise this one, lmao. Rookie looks very off-model here! (I originally gave her a yellow collar, then changed it to a scarf)

 

This one was made entirely with inks, that's why the colours look so flat and smooth. I quite like this effect, but I do prefer painting with watercolours. I will give inks another go in the future, though.

 

Watercolours + coloured pencils, I remember I hated this one when I finished it. The face is very wonky as I drew the lines after I finished painting and my sketch disappeared under the paint. Still, I want to revisit this concept at some point.

Okay, I like this one a lot! I painted him sometime around Halloween. I feel like this particular paper and pen really agreed with me that day. My scanner wasn't able to pick it up, but I added a lot of accents with mica paints, so this one shimmers when light hits it at specific angles :)

(Another one. I also had a mischievous witch kitty, but never finished her)

I have a bit more to say about this thingy!

Every now and then, I think about making a skunk character for myself. Guinea pigs are my most favourite animals on the planet and I considered reviving Glitch a couple of times, but I found out that I tend to gravitate towards skunks as far as animal avatars go. Still, there are several things that are holding me back:

- I don't want anyone to think that he's my fursona or that I'm a furry, I'd like to distance myself from the furry community,

- lots of folks use skunks for their fart/musk fetishes, definitely don't wanna be associated with that either,

- I have trouble getting attached to characters that live outside of my main fictional universe,

- skunks are very cute and I'm very ugly. It makes me feel like a liar!

I drew this on my bed (didn't feel like sitting, haha) and used one of my cheapest papers, that's why everything looks so sloppy. More bed doodles ahead!

Here I was testing a more muted/natural colour scheme. I liked it, but not as much as the previous one. You can tell I panicked while I was painting in that hoodie!

Another one from my bed - I eventually gave up on these colours too because I found them to be very similar to a character that belongs to an artist I follow. I think I will try indigo + beige next time (if there will be a next time)!

Not thrilled with the outlines, but other than that this is certainly one of my cleanest pieces so far.

Something a bit different for once. The outcome isn't very good but I learned a lot while painting this!

Another sloppy bed doodle - painted with a rose colour that I particularly liked. I bought 3 student grade watercolour pans from a company that I was previously unfamiliar with. I was really impressed by them!

 

I did another test with one of the 3 colours. Same good impressions. Feeling confident, I ordered a set of 12 colours in tubes from this brand + 2 tubes open stock. I was super excited because I knew this student line of paints was discontinued in 2018, so they're really difficult to find now and they will run out eventually. I felt lucky I was able to get my hands on them before they vanish forever!

 

Well... that rapidly turned out to be the worst watercolour investment I made D: Their tubes don't even come close to the pans, the colours are dirty and weak, they don't mix well & they don't want to activate once they're dry on the palette. Their green, used here on the overalls, turned out to be particularly gross; the one below was mixed by me. Their black oozes binder and not much else. All of the colours seem to be packed with fillers, feel gritty and don't handle remotely as good as any other paints I own.

 

I gave them another chance just to make sure that my judgements were fair. They were :( Originally I was going to shade this piece, but I couldn't bring myself to fight with these paints any longer. I don't see myself using them again, they're far too frustrating to work with. They take forever to dry, causing the paper to buckle more than it usually does, which is visible both on the bunny and the fox. All of them have this unpleasant, gritty and sticky texture - now, many colours granulate naturally, such as that brown on the mouse with a poppy I shared above. But this isn't the case, I think they have lots of additives to keep the price relatively low.

Still, that's 45 bucks flushed down the toilet, ARGH. I'd happily spend that money on quality watercolours because I really enjoy this hobby overall. Sorry for the rant, I'm disappointed that there is so much discrepancy between pans and tubes within not just one brand, but also one line of paints. I can see why they don't produce these anymore! There's a lesson to be learned here - always test both pans and tubes before making a bigger purchase.

I'm not throwing them away because my older brother and his wife want to have children soon. I know these paints are non-toxic, so as soon as my possible nephews grow up a bit I could gift this set to them to play around with. I believe kids would enjoy them!

Here I tested the professional grade of paints from the same brand and wow, what a difference! I know the colours might not look particularly pretty but it's entirely on me this time - I made some really unfortunate mixes because this was my very first time working with a limited palette (6 primaries, 1 brown and 1 grey) and I undoubtedly failed the challenge, lmao. But the paints themselves handled beautifully, they are everything I expect from watercolours, they also tend to stay vibrant after drying, which is a valuable trait. I wish they were more accessible and, uh, less pricey!

I finished this one before painting the two foxes, but didn't want to disrupt the story about my good and bad experiences & left it for last. It's a Ko-fi reward and I'm quite happy with it, but I struggled with it far more than I'd like to admit ;___; I couldn't find a way to draw this character to save my life, took me months to come up with anything decent. Though as soon as I had the outlines on paper, things went very smoothly and I had lots of fun!

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This is everything I have for now! Holy macaroni, it felt good to write a new entry and share some doodles. Sorry if I bored you with all that paint gibberish. I want to gather more experience and form some opinions, then I'd like to create a blog that is dedicated solely to watercolours. I research this medium like a maniac and I believe that at this point I have some knowledge that could help some beginners out - but I definitely lack the practical experience, so I gotta work on that first. Might need a better scanner too, though it's not something I'm very fixated on.

Thank you for stopping by!