r/watercolorpractice

Paul Clark - Poppies, Anastasia Mily - Winter Scene, Karen Rice’s people (on a bookmark)

Anyone else done any of these? Who else is good to learn from?

I think the sail should have more white left behind and maybe darken the trees behind the sail.
Just looking for other thoughts since I know what this is supposed to read based on the reference

I know people make a big deal about using the best paper and paint and brushes. For the most part, I agree. But, and there’s always a but, sometimes I like to experiment in unconventional ways. This is a piece of white cardboard. The kind that is used to make cereal boxes. The photo is from a real estate advertisement. The paint is a half pan set that I found at hobby lobby for 40% off (paid $4).
I don’t know if it’s good. But it is interesting.

Hard to capture the grey stormy water. But content with the rest

https://e.emuseum.com/objects/13100/storm-at-sea

Spent quite some hours watercoloring over the weekend.

I took my time with this one, but I guess the size of the portraits are still kinda miniature-ish. Might look into increasing portrait size but I'm wondering if that really is the issue.

BELOW ARE SOME PERSONAL THOUGHTS:

//FIRST SLIDE:

//GOING LEFT TO RIGHT, TOP TO BOTTOM

First attempt: Didn't really look at the reference that clearly so once I got a rough guideline, just went for it. I learnt to actually NOT use so much black paint, as it ended up being the most eye-catching area. Even for eyebrows, go gradually darker. Only after finishing it I realized well, the girl in the reference is more orange than yellow. Also without much contrast in the facial planes, the subject now looks like a baby.

Second attempt: Tried to preserve the whites but ended up letting it dictate the piece. Nothing wrong with keeping whites, but gives the waterline too much prominence. Being afraid to add more halftones and commit made the facial structure kinda different. But I genuinely thought structurely, everything read pretty well! Instead of saving highlights, I lifted the wet areas with a tissue paper to create the highlighted area.

Third Attempt: I realize when your ceiling light is yellow, and the paper white is now yellow, you get a little colorblind and it looks normal, but when you swap the lights back to white you see how much yellow it actually gives you. My brush control slipped and it ended up giving a lopsided face in the end.

Fourth Attempt: At this point, I lost quite a lot of steam and redid the pencil sketch many a times. But took my time and did the mid tones first, and then really tried to slowly paint edges so that it wouldn't go over the face like in the third attempt. Also, instead of putting pure black for the shadow of the eye corners, I used brown as well. I spent more time studying the eye shapes in this attempt. Also the deepest shadows of the jacket had black paint to match the reference better instead of just pure blue in the third attempt.

//SECOND SLIDE:

Mechanical pencil on the second slide for scale haha.

//LAST SLIDE:

Last slide has the actual reference image!

//THOUGHTS:

It's hard to achieve that likeness. Sometimes I look at something and can't decide if it's yellow, or orange more. But slowly taking my time, and taking a slightly looser approach helps!

I am self taught and just started. Any tips and feedback is welcome!

I use a milk carton as a palette.The color is a mixture of the three primary colors.

any feedback and which tutorials/ you tuber recommendations do you guys have? i feel like my drawing is amateurish/wrong perspective and theres not much depth to the colours

Ocean wave

this is my first try at watercolour and painting in general, just looking for some tips and tricks to make my work better. No reference used

Today I cleaned my paint board from all the tiny scraps that I use to swatch/practice on while painting. I will use them to decorate sketchbooks. Those of you who worry about wasting paint when you clean your brush, don't. Just put it on paper. Any paper. Some of this is Canson Graduate. The rest are on Arches. I'll let you guess which are on Arches : )