u/Skedawdle_374

Hi everyone. I wanted to try painting the reference in pic 6 with triads. I tested my warm primaries (deep vermilion/crimson lake, ultramarine, middle chrome) vs my cool ones (cyan, magenta, zinc yellow). The pictures are my most recent attempts to the oldest. I also used sap green and/or burnt umber in pictures 2 and 3.

I like the warm glow in my latest attempt, but there's something missing and I can't figure out what's wrong with it. I'm not aiming to replicate the reference 100 percent, but I don't really know what I want the finished painting to look like. I just want it to look like it makes sense.

Should I use darker washes for the background? Or maybe pile on some more layers, or try other colours? I'd really appreciate some pointers on what feels off, or what I need to focus on improving.

I couldn't get the values to be super dark with just pure indigo, so I tried adding burnt umber in the third painting. I like how it almost looks like black.

Hi. I'm still working through my two colour studies. I initially started doing two colour studies because I felt that it's easier to think in values and colour temperature when I'm just using two colours.

But I noticed that I'm not thinking of colour temperature much anymore, because I was always only trying to get the values right. Even then, I tend to load up the brush with saturated colours and the values slip into midtones most of the time.

I tried fixing one of the paintings using fineliners, but I don't want to need to rescue the paintings using lines all the time. Maybe I should take a step back and do more monochromatic studies first?

Feedback and tips most welcome!

Hi. I've been doing some two colour studies in watercolour to get used to mixing colours. While working on them, I ran into a couple of issues. I noticed that I often had to rush when controlling edges. It's easier when I only want crisp edges, but when it's hard on one side and softer on the other, I had to quickly feather some water around the softer edge, but if I rushed too much, I'll get ugly blooming effects.

The other thing is that I'm not sure what colour to use for the shadows. Right now, I tend to default to straight ultramarine or whichever of the two pigments that gives me the darkest value. As a result, the paintings don't look very realistic, but I also feel like I don't want to paint the shadows dark grey. I'll be doing more two colour studies with other colour combinations, but I'm not sure how to go about it when I go beyond two colour studies. How do you decide what colour to paint the shadows? I'd appreciate any advice and feedback.

Hi. After my last post, I tried painting the white fabric again. I think I got pretty close to the colour in the reference in some parts, but I realised that I don't like how drab it looked compared to my previous attempt. Even though that one was less realistic, I liked how much more vibrant the colours were.

I found an illustration I really like by Gene Li, so I studied it and then tried applying it to my own reference. I left out the fabric and the knife and just painted a gradient background. I feel like I could push it further, but at that point I've already painted the same reference more than ten times :s. So I decided to move on and did a simple study in two colours.

I also stopped using my watercolour pencils like pencils and just used them like traditional watercolour. The paintings are from the most recent to oldest, and I included the reference pictures I used. Any tips and feedback are most welcome.