Progress

A few weeks ago I gave myself a short project. What happens if I paint the same scene everyday for a week. I decided I would squint my eyes and just paint the colors that I see in wet watercolor. This is the scene from the desk where I paint. There is a field of very tall corn with golden tassels, beyond that there is a soybean field and then a couple of barns and way in the distance there are trees. I have noticed that the colors change from hour to hour and day to day depending on the time and the weather. I masked off two squares in my watercolor sketchbook  and painted the first one. The next day I tried again. I made sure to note the time of day and the weather on the bottom of each painting.

On the third day I feel like I was making progress and there were some nice puffy clouds in the sky to paint. You can really see how the colors change day to day by now. I tried to paint them as true as possible. My masking tape was taking a layer of paper with it when I peeled it off so on the fifth day I used blue painter's tape from Dollar Tree and that worked much better.

I am very happy with the painting I did on the fifth day. I feel like I really made a lot of progress in a short amount of time. Imagine what could happen if I had kept on going. After the fifth day my sciatic nerve really started bothering me and I couldn't walk up and down the stairs as easily so the project stopped. I am going to physical therapy now and slowly getting better. I did a couple of "plein air" paintings from car last week so I am still painting just not walking as far to do it. 

Here is a photo of the actual scene. I used my artistic license to cut out the trees to make things a little easier on myself. I tried to paint the scene a couple of times when we first moved here with the trees and I never liked the way it looked. 

Gouache Color Chart

I made this gouache color chart a couple of days after I made the watercolor chart. I have been battling sciatica pain the past few weeks and have not even made a doodle in my sketchbook and I even have new unopened brush pens sitting here, that is when you know I am not feeling well. Anyway, I have some medicine and appointments for chiropractors and physical therapy so I should be back on track soon.

From left to right Holbein Gouache, MBGI-WAP Gouache, M. Graham Gouache. After painting all of these swatches side by side I can really see a difference in quality of the cheap MBGI-WAP compared to the higher end brands. I have not been able to use the M. Graham enough to truly judge but I think I like their consistency and coverage the best and oooh that Payne's Gray!

This is a swatch of the M. Graham Payne's Gray, so beautiful when you add a touch of water to it. I can't wait to get back to painting and really get into these new colors!

Pink Cockatoo

The other day I was browsing through Amazon's Daily Deals when I came across a 15ml tube of Daniel Smith Lavender! I had been excited to try Daniel Smith watercolors for awhile because I always see other artists mentioning how beautiful they are. The price was the lowest I have seen for a tube of any color so I bought it. When it arrived I didn't really have an idea of what I was going to use it for so I just took out my little 5 inch book and painted part of the paper with it to see how it looked. It is beautiful in person, the scanner will never pick up the sparkle that this paint has. Later when I was browsing Pintrest I found a cute pink cockatoo that I wanted to paint in gouache. I thought it would look interesting on the lavender watercolor background and I am pretty happy with the way it turned out. My favorite part is making all of the detail lines with my thin brush to really bring the bird to life.

Full disclosure: I signed up to be an amazon affiliate so if you click on my link and buy something I get a small portion of the sale.

Color chart

Yesterday I decided to make a color chart that has all of my watercolors on one page so I can compare how they look dried. It is nice to have them all in one place on the same type of paper. The paper is Cold Press Strathmore Watercolor Paper 140#. The watercolor sets I have from left to right top to bottom are:

Yarka - Jack Richeson - St. Petersburg - Set of 24

Derwent - Inktense  Blocks - Set of 12

Kuretake - Gansai Tambi - Set of 12

Sakura - Koi Pocket Field Sketch Box - Set of 12

Then I have a few tubes, 4 Winsor & Newton Cotman, 3 Grumbacher, and 1 Daniel Smith.

I can't believe how pale the Koi paints are in comparison, for 10 or more years they were the only watercolors I had and I thought they were amazing. I love the Yarka set, the quality of the paints are great and the palette is very easy to take everywhere but I do not like the thin plastic insert that holds the paints, it is starting to deteriorate. I just bought my first tube of Daniel Smith a couple of weeks ago, for some reason Daniel Smith Lavender was a daily deal on amazon, so I bought it and it is beautiful! It almost has a sparkle to it.

I put my brushes in the photo so you could see what I use. They are a set of Handmade Modern from Target, the whole set was only $19 but they are great quality for that price. It was a great way for me to try out a lot of brushes without spending a ton of money. Right now I am in love with the brush they call a "rigger". It is perfect for fine details on feathers, fur, or bearded dragon spikes. I tend to get caught up in the details since that brush is so fun to use.

I wish I had thought of making a color chart sooner, it is nice to see all of the different paints I have to choose from in one place. I am going to do the same thing with all of my gouache when I get a chance.