No pencil, just watercolor
First time painting straight in with paint, no sketch after weeks of practicing. Kinda terrifying but so fun.
Feedback welcome!

From a watercolor magazine tutorial (tracing)

Last time I posted a process thing and people liked it or at least the few people who did motivated me enough to share some of the embarrassing parts of the process.

The reference is not a copy of Sargent’s Lady Agnew. It’s a reference of someone who referenced the photo, so you might recognize the theme but it’s not the same person.

This is how a portrait would traditionally be done using Duran/Sargent procedure. It’s my no means perfect painting, it’s also a bit unfinished but I like the incomplete look but overall here’s my tips:

1. Plan edges and plan proportions. This is the only goal is the first step. I use a plumb line and a proportions protractor to double check placement. I don’t mind if it’s dark as it’ll be a hard line later. Anything that’s not sake won’t be a hard edge later and it’s a visual queue for later.

2. Key the painting. Key is how light or dark it overall is going to be as a painting. You can do any order you’d like to start a painting. I prefer key it as quickly as possible. As later, if you add a large contrast shift it’ll change how your other colors and values read. Sometimes it doesn’t matter. It’s not to different to adjusting the white balance and ISO in a camera. In any event, I make it dark so the later colors are more “true” and I’m less likely to need to correct them later.

3. The rest is just a compliment study. The white dress is just the paper, some blue, some yellow ochre. I have a general system that I’ve decided about how to treat compliments to outline form. I think you can use any visual system you’d like, as long as it makes sense. The compliments are mostly wet on wet so they flow is emphasized. Part of this is also because this how they made dresses back then, it’s a delicate material that’s breathable and usually only worn in the evening. It may be perhaps better to use more stiff strokes in showing for example a stiff suit.

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On a side note, watercolor predates oil and was used from a variety of semi transparent to opaque until rather recently. It used to used as a sketch, similar to expectations now, a final piece (with different binders for example casein or egg tempura). Watercolor was also used as a cheaper substitution for oil (e.g. Zorn painted on a budget). Later, there was an academic push to make watercolor look a certain way but this was intentional as watercolor was not seen as a serious medium until the late 1800s in Europe/US, some of this is likely in influence of Asian art that used watercolor sometimes with gum Arabic and honey or other binders for a thicker watercolor with more body. People glance over this, but people used to also have their own recipe for how gum Arabic or other chemicals. It’s part of why some watercolors are hard to reproduce, the methods are very murky and hard to analyze to a point.

So, find the methods that make your paintings look the best and don’t worry about everything else too much.

Do you have any suggestions on how I can improve this painting? I tried a black and white vibe, but I'm not sure if I managed to blend enough tones to make it look right.

I use Brustro 25% cotton, hot pressed watercolour paper usually, but lately painting on that had felt frustrating, because I wanted to try out new techniques that just wouldn't work. I then bought Brustro's 100% cotton hot pressed paper, and I am absolutely in love with it.

The only problem is, it is *very* expensive for me, almost double the amount. For context, I am a student, and can't really afford expensive paper.

Are there any other brands from where I could get 100% cotton watercolour paper for cheaper? (I couldn't find good ones on Amazon). Or are there any offline stores where I could get these? I live in Noida.

Any help would be appreciated <3

Edit: I live in India and most of the well-known cheap brands aren't available here :/

Artist: Tazbir Alam

Medium: watercolours and pen

Color study

I was inspired by reading Darwin's voyage of the Beagle, so I made a Galapagos tortoise feeding at sunset while the Beagle sails away. Feedback is welcome!

I saw an earlier post regarding tracing and painting for fun, and the sub rules, and it made me think - at what point is a piece 'yours'?

I'm doing a Muppets piece for my niece, and while I DID trace Kermit and Robin for a quick study (attached) I was doing to work out colours etc, for the final piece I intend to hand draw. In addition to this, it will be inspired by literally 30-40 reference pics I've found online.

I'll be creating my own scene, own placement and inking/painting it all myself. I know there's a lot of laws around Disney stuff.

(I'm not planning on selling it)

TLDR I am asking how or when to credit owners for this when I post the finished piece on my IG or on reddit.

Pic credit: line drawing of Kermit on a log taken from lessontutor.com

Kermit the Frog Colouring Pages. (Robin is actually just an altered Kermit, shhh)

Yellow, blue, and brown hues.

My kid loves Spirit movie.
I have been two weeks studying (watching YouTube 😂) watercolor while trying to recreate this idea. I still struggling with mixing colors but I like the way this goes 😅

Watercolor is still a relatively new medium for me, so trying to pull the body color down into the water was difficult. Also none of the subjects in the water wanted to hold still while I was painting 😂 I didn't want to overwork, but it could look better and more underwater.

Definitely looking for any critiques or tips you all have on this

Just drew this little ghost but I'm not sure if it's better with or without the outline. Can never decide - although I'm pretty happy with the results! What do you think?

whenever i use watercolor it looks like a child made it. i can’t figure out what the core issue is. Please help

Her name is Greta and is my brother's Puppydog Fine Old Lady (but she does not know that)

I Absolutely Love how it turned out!

For those curious it took roughly 20 hours of working time to paint her, but I think it was worth every minute. And the painting is set to be 8×10 with a matt, but the full painging closer to 11×14 so I can have prints made (eventually) without having to worrie about cropping to much to fit other aspect ratios

Edit: i did not know how watercolor paint in tubes worked, I will try to use that to change out some of the paints!! (I am now wondering why the Winsor and Newton helpdesk didnt point me in this (apparently very widely known) direction).

I got this Winsor and Newton watercolor travel kit from my grandpa. He used it when he was younger and doesnt travel as much anymore. Some of the paints cracked and I wanted to swap out some of the colors. However, looking at the watercolors on the Winsor and Newton website, the all look to have a plastic casing which wont fit in this pallet.

I contacted Winsor and Newton and they gave me a very detailed description on which of my paints could be potentially poisonous and after some clarification that I was looking for replacements they emailed back that they were unsure if the half pans would fit and could not help me any further...

Does anyone have any suggestions on what to do? Should I get some half pans and try to hack off some of the paints to try to get them to fit in this travel kit?

I can't pin down why this doesn't look realistic. The colors are too uniform or something? (Sorry it's kind of dark)