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Description
The result of today's watercolour workshop, which was most informative... pure watercolour on A3 cold-pressed 100% cotton/linen really posh paper (which I forget the name of). Oh, except I did cheat by sticking those three white eye highlights in Paint.net... because I simply forgot to put them in at the end. Eh, I'll do it properly later... along with the background... and the hair... maybe.

Important things I have learned:

How to do a wash in watercolour (note to self: buy a big synthetic sable square wash brush. Scrappy medium-sized hog hair is not ideal ¬___¬).

  Really posh paper is my friend. My dear, i.e. costly, costly friend. But it can take a lot more punishment/layers of wash than non cotton/linen paper, and shows a lot more smoothness in the paint once applied. It also in this instance helped compensate for my crappy wash brushes and the fact that all but one of my watercolour paint tubes had solidified after decades of under-use. Yay for watercolour, I can still use them! But... a bit harder for me to create intense-colour washes. Possible, just harder.

  Using masking fluid is pretty likely to damage soft, rough paper, and the softer it is, the worse the damage . So don't use it with the posh paper.

  Do a light base wash, leaving only one or at most two areas of highlight totally blank and showing the white of the page through. Yup, wash over the whites of the eyes and the teeth. Those eye-whites are actually pink.

  Put touches of bright reds down the cente of the face (i.e. the bits closest to the viewer - not necessarily the entre of the face). Hence the lipstick-ness of this picture . Likewise, bluer washes along the curves of the face receding from the viewer.

  Don't draw lines with this particular style. Avoid like plague. Soften and blur everything into washes - it's a tonal study painting.

  Live with the cockling. My stretching of paper never works anyway ;___;

Description
The result of today's watercolour workshop, which was most informative... pure watercolour on A3 cold-pressed 100% cotton/linen really posh paper (which I forget the name of). Oh, except I did cheat by sticking those three white eye highlights in Paint.net... because I simply forgot to put them in at the end. Eh, I'll do it properly later... along with the background... and the hair... maybe.

Important things I have learned:

How to do a wash in watercolour (note to self: buy a big synthetic sable square wash brush. Scrappy medium-sized hog hair is not ideal ¬___¬).

  Really posh paper is my friend. My dear, i.e. costly, costly friend. But it can take a lot more punishment/layers of wash than non cotton/linen paper, and shows a lot more smoothness in the paint once applied. It also in this instance helped compensate for my crappy wash brushes and the fact that all but one of my watercolour paint tubes had solidified after decades of under-use. Yay for watercolour, I can still use them! But... a bit harder for me to create intense-colour washes. Possible, just harder.

  Using masking fluid is pretty likely to damage soft, rough paper, and the softer it is, the worse the damage . So don't use it with the posh paper.

  Do a light base wash, leaving only one or at most two areas of highlight totally blank and showing the white of the page through. Yup, wash over the whites of the eyes and the teeth. Those eye-whites are actually pink.

  Put touches of bright reds down the cente of the face (i.e. the bits closest to the viewer - not necessarily the entre of the face). Hence the lipstick-ness of this picture . Likewise, bluer washes along the curves of the face receding from the viewer.

  Don't draw lines with this particular style. Avoid like plague. Soften and blur everything into washes - it's a tonal study painting.

  Live with the cockling. My stretching of paper never works anyway ;___;