Fall Leaf in Watercolor

I was recently requested to try to paint a fall leaf.  There were a lot of interesting ideas on Pinterest that we found. 

At the end of the day, I went out into the front yard, found a leaf, traced it, then did my best job I could painting the leaf in Watercolor.  See below the image for how I traced it.

Below is the Tracing of the Leaf onto the Watercolor Paper.

Sohpie's Barn: UPDATE!

Sohpie's Barn now has a new home.  My first framed piece of art!

Online Art Lessons - Great Find!

Today I found this website that has a whole plethora of online art lessons, courses and tutorials.  There is some paid content on the site, but a whole bunch of free content as well.  Right now, I think I'm most interested in the watercolor painting classes and some of the tutorials.

Online Art Lessons Website

Here's an example of the Watercolor Rocks Tutorial.

I recommend at least bookmarking the site and coming back later to check out what they have.

This is one of the other areas I'm interested in as well is the Sketchbook Basics tutorial, as I'm not the best sketch artist by any means.  I have to do a lot of tracing for my drawings.

Well, that's it for now.

Largemouth Bass

So I found this simple line drawing of a largemouth bass and decided to give it a try.  I really like the way it turned out.  Initially I had just painted the fish.  I then decided to just splash on some blue paint, then added the water at the bottom and the splash.  To finish off the drawing, I added the fishing line to make it look like it was fighting.

Red Barn

In keeping with the recent rustic theme/barn theme, I decided I wanted to do something with a bit more color in it this time.

I followed the same routine I usually do:

1. Find a picture
2. Turn it into a black & white line drawing on Gimp
3. Trace and Ink the image
4. Paint

Here's the finished image of the barn.  The original picture, the barn is brown, but I opted for a more vibrant red.

Tree Doodles

I spent time doodling some trees the other day.  I experimented with a variety of designs and colors.  Can you find the tree that sticks out?

Here is the original sketch, prior to painting.  Sorry it's a bit dark, I sketched it at night, painted the next day.

Paints used were from my Sakura Koi Field Sketch box.

Review of Sakura Koi Field Sketch Box

Right now, my go to Watercolor painting kit is the Field Sketch Box from Sakura.  The colors are really vibrant, and the detachable palette and portable nature make it really easy to paint anywhere.  Because of the portability and easy of use, it is much handier to get out, than my tube paints.

Below you can see a picture of my Koi 24 Color kit, along with one of my watercolor paintings.

Amazon Link
Sakura Koi Products on Amazon
These kits come in a variety of sizes, from 12, 18, 24, 30, 36 & 48 pans.

Some of the features of my particular kit (24 Pan) include:

• 24 Half Pan watercolor paints
• A refillable watercolor brush
• 2 dabbing sponges
• A detachable, pegged palette
• Small size, easy portability, 6.25" x 4.5" x 1.125"
• A base pull-down ring for holding

My Ratings of the Set:
Value: 5 (assuming $20 purchase price)
Vibrancy: 5
Quality of Pans: 4
Quality of Accessories: 4.5
Portability / Ease of Use: 5
Overall Rating: 4.5

As for the Cost, the set retails for around $40, but you can pick one up at your local craft store typically for around $25, or on Amazon for about $21.  This is a great value for the $20-25 range, average value if you are paying $40.

As for the overall quality of the set, the majority of the pans have held up well, however 1 or two of them have quite a bit of cracking, especially my Prussian Blue.  It hasn't affected the vibrancy of the colors, or anything else, but for that reason alone it's why I rated the Quality of Pans below at a 4, not a 5.

One thing I did when I purchased the set was to create a palette of the colors, which really helps when choosing what colors to select.  Here is a picture of the palette I created.  I suggest doing this when you get a new kit like this to not only see what the colors actually produce, but to get a sense of how well the paint works from the pans to the paper.

For any other details on the set, visit Sakura's website, which I have listed below.
Sakura Website

Sophie's Barn

On the way to Iowa from Illinois along I-80, there is a barn on the south side of the road, somewhere near mile marker 50.  It is starting to get run down, but is a favorite of my mother-in-law, so I decided to paint it from one of the pictures we had taken sometime along the way.

Here's the finished piece, I really like the way it turned out in the end.

Sophie's Barn

Here's the original picture I painted it from.

Prairie Shack - Tracing, Ink & Paint

I found this image of a shack and thought it looked like something interesting to paint.  I started by modifying the image in Gimp to create a black & white outline of the image that I can trace.

Here is the image prior to tracing.

I have now traced the image and inked it out.

Now the fun part, when I paint the image.  Here is the finished product below.  I really like how it turned out in the end.  I call it, Prairie Shack.

The last thing I did was took the image and converted it to a black and white image, as I think it gives it a unique look.

Below are the supplies I used, along with the printout, and the finished painting.  I have a Sakura Koi 24 pot watercolor kit that has become my go to supplies recently.  I used a #8 Round brush for most of the details.  I highly recommend the Sakura Koi kit, and I'll post a link to the kit here below.  It provides deep vibrant colors, and in another post, I'll do a full review on the kit, show some of its features and how the colors look on a pallet I created.

Click Below to go to the Field Sketch Kit by Sakura.

Sakura Koi 24

Abstract Watercolor

Recently, a family member got me a small easel, as they knew I had started painting.  Even though I typically don't use an easel for my watercolor painting, I decided I'd try something new, and do a splatter abstract with the Watercolor paints.

I set the easel up outside and just started picking random colors and flicking them at the piece of paper.  It was a lot of fun, and I ended up with a pretty neat picture.

My favorite part of the picture is the blue at the top.  I decided to add some water to the paper before I splattered and the way the blue meshed with the water makes it look like a drop of water about ready to drip off the paper.

Trace, Ink & Paint - Bluebird

So, a few days ago at work, there were some scrap office supplies, and I was able to procure and undercabinet light.  It's about 4 ft long, and I thought it would be perfect as a light-box for doing some watercolor tracings.  I'm not the best by any means at drawing, so tracing is a good option for me.

I wanted to do a bluebird, so I found a very simple bluebird online and printed out out an outline.  Here is a picture of the undercabinet light, the outline, and then my tracing.

Here's the finished painting below.  I somewhat messed up the area around the throat.  I wasn't paying attention to the water and it bled a little bit.  Other than that, I'm pleased with the overall result.  The whole process of tracing and painting took maybe 35 minutes.  I cut the paper to 4"x6", so it should fit nicely in a frame.

Definitely much quicker and easier than the bluebird I had done before.

Hope you enjoy.

Arteza Watercolor Brush Pens & Watercolor Paper

I started with Watercolors as I mentioned before, wanting to paint and color in some scenes for map sketches I was drawing.  I happened upon Arteza's Watercolor Brush Pens and purchased a set of 96 off of Amazon and I haven't been disappointed with them.

Click on the Image Below to see the set which I'm using.


Being new to Watercolor, I had watched some YouTube videos (see bottom of post) which were really helpful to get started.  One thing I didn't understand well enough the first time I started using them, was how important the paper is that you are painting on. I had purchased along with the Watercolor Brush pens, some mixed-media paper from Arteza as well, and assumed that would be fine.  That was not the case.  The brush pens act more like markers, and after applied dry, do not blend well on the mixed media paper.  I got very frustrated and figured I was doing something wrong; it looked so easy to blend these pens in the videos.  I later went out and bought some Watercolor paper and had a much easier time afterward using the brush pens.

Here is one of the first images I painted using the brush pens, it was of tulips I sketched.  You can see how the colors blended well.  I think this was even done on the mixed media paper...

As for the Pens themselves, they are very easy to use, either Wet on Wet, or Wet on Dry.  I have used them for coloring in adult coloring books as well and they work very nice.  The color range with the set of 96 is extensive, and frankly, the set of 24 or set of 48 could probably get you by just as well.  I have found that many of the colors are barely distinguishable from each other. I've linked to both of those sets here as well to save you time.



Arteza has some nice watercolor paper which I have linked below.  I will say that I have not specifically purchased this paper yet, but it is not the mixed media, which won't work as well if you are going to purchase the pens.  Be careful to make sure you are buying 140lb/300gsm Watercolor paper if/when you do.

Click on the Image Below to go directly to the Watercolor Paper


Overall, these are some good products to get you started.  They got me started and only led to me then purchasing further watercolor tube sets, pan sets, and more as I have gone along.  I'll post more on those later.

Links to YouTube Videos on Watercolor Brush Pen Tutorials.

-Rob

Red Spotted Purple Butterfly

This weekend, while out at our local state park, I took a picture of a Red Spotted purple butterfly.  Later that evening, I decided to try to paint this butterfly.  I'm wishing now that I had just left the background a plain color instead of trying to paint the leaf, but live and learn.  Additionally, I tried using some masking fluid around the wing tips in order to keep them white.  I must not have applied it correctly because I was having a hard time getting it off, so just left it on, which is why the wing tips look bluish, and not white.

Above is the original picture / inspiration piece.

I posted on Facebook and surprisingly got a lot of positive feedback, which was nice.  Obviously, there are things that can be improved, but I'll work on that as I go.

--Rob