[Painting] A Watercolor a day

This week I challenged myself to learn how to use watercolor. About a year ago, I brought a watercolor pencil set and barely used it. It felt almost too precious to use but I finally broke through to use it without remorse (almost).

I been trying to inspire myself to use them over the past year. I really wanted to paint images in beautiful colors but I lack self confidence. I always feel that I can't do it but I want to break through that barrier. Hopefully, one day I can paint sites and landscapes. For now, I will have to learn through tutorials and images online.

Waterlily

 July 20, 2015 - Start
Watercolor waterlily tutorial I found on youtube. I could not make it as expansive as the tutorial showed since I was trying to save paper by cutting a 9" x 12" paper into 1/4. Watercolor paper is expensive after all. This 90 lb paper also curled so I would probably get thicker watercolor paper next time.

I can't say I am too proud of this work but it was a start. Using watercolor pencils was difficult when trying to imitate the techniques.

Learned: Can't mix the color I want as easily with watercolor pencils. Also less is more.

Pochica next to character.

 July 21, 2015 - Somewhat stumped already

Not even a day later, I was stumped. I had no idea what I wanted to paint but I knew I had to try something. Currently, I am playing Hometown Story and the wiki has a image of Pochica and Magi in the background. I thought Pochica was cute so I decided to paint it (cannot tell if Pochica is female or male).

I tried something different this time which was to outline using the same color but darker. I kind of like it. I might try this more often.

Learned: Draw lightly, else it is a pain to hide with light colors.

Pokemon - Raikou

 July 22, 2015 - Shading fail

I wanted to try something with some shading and my sister gave me the idea I should just paint Pokemon (lots of options). I doubt I'll paint all the Pokemon, it would take forever or a couple years if I did one a day excluding weekends/holidays/etc.

I screwed up quite a bit on Raikou. I didn't know how to get a golden yellow color so I kept it as yellow. Then I used black and it ended up spreading into the yellow since I was not careful enough. After that, I pulled the black into the yellow and white areas that should be shaded. Also, Raikou's eye was too large and I did not realize until the end.

Learned: Well, I tried. Can't always be successful. Use black last no matter how tempting it is.

Forest Spirit.

July 23, 2015 - No blacks

After the incident with Raikou, I wanted to do a image with no black involved. I was playing Hometown Story and saw the event with the Forest Spirit. I thought she was pretty and cute so I decided to paint her. I have to admit, it was hard to find images of her. To be exact, it was hard to find any images of the game in general.

I'm actually quite happy with this one, well except it is hard to get a dark green with no dark green color. I went with a lighter coloring and it works. I realize that I screwed up drawing the dark line for her hair since the paper was not fully dried before I did that. The watercolor pencil glided quickly across and I had to deal with the mistake.

Learned: Painting a lighter color then add a layer of darker color on top will yield a mix of the two colors.

Hometown Story player's character.

July 24, 2015 - Testing Techniques

I wanted to try different techniques while drawing the playable character from Hometown Story. This is the 2nd version since I screwed up on the first version.

I tried scribbling on a scrap paper with the color I wanted to use. Then I used a brush with water to wet it and use it when it was the color I wanted. This usually caused the color to be light or very light depending on the amount of water. I was able to mix colors this way but they always come out light.

I also tried to sharpen the pencils with a box cutter and used the scraps with water. Just a little bit of the scraps can make a very dark vibrant color. I ended up saving the scraps in a small bag for future uses.

The painting came out okay. I like the color of the hair which was a mix of two blues. I was unable to mix a navy blue color for the skirt. This is one of the outfits for Hometown Story.

Learned: Light color, dark color depends on how the pencil is used.

Final Thoughts
I'm not sure if I would challenge myself every week to do this but it was an interesting experience. I learned a lot just from painting a few images. I will continue to learn more and hopefully my skills will improve.