Most paintings have an ugly duckling stage. This one had an extremely alarmed expression stage.
This lil guy started as a follow-a-long to Lachri’s Fine Arts video. It combines watercolor and water color pencils, and I added some white ink with dib nibs for hours because white pens just…. I haven’t made friends with them yet, or I haven’t met the right white pen for me, or something. Then, the ink blorphed while I was signing it, after a long afternoon of making all those white marks. *sigh*
I ordered a pack of the much-hailed white GellyRoll Classics after this project, because hope springs eternal, I guess. Or maybe because art supply therapy is a nice salve for art supply disappointment? I also got a bottle of Blink (black) and Wink (white) drawing ink for Giftmas that I’m excited to be trying out soon. My tests show great opacity and non-reactivation after drying, and I’m already “ride to the airport” friends with dip nibs at this point, that final ink blorph notwithstanding.
One thing that I’m excited about this piece is that although I diverged from the instructions (as always) fairly early on, I was still able to follow along as my piece gained more and more differences from the instructors. Whether I mostly feel bad about the lack of skill on my part to follow along or good about my artistic problem solving depends on the day.
The other is that it holds all the shape and contours when I digitally look at it as a monochrome piece.
I’m really proud that my understanding of values survived the riot of color going on with this critter. I don’t think I would have managed that a year ago, so my focus on building skills has yielded some results. That’s a nice feeling.
