Watercolor 101

I have found watercolor to be a much more challenging medium than oil for obvious reasons (at least to the artists). To non-art people, watercolors might seem more like a kinder-garten medium; however, once you try water, you know the hurdles it poses. One got to be fast with watercolors and it is more daunting a task if you try them after working on oils. Oils take ages to dry and give you ample time to correct the mistakes. Secondly, oil are opaque colors which means you can redraw with each new layer. But water doesn't give you any of these liberties. Watercolors being transparent, stay permanent on your paper. Even the lowermost layer keeps revealing itself to the viewer. So if you needed a white portion leftover in your paper, you better make sure, you dont wash over it by mistake.

For all these reasons, one may find it difficult to adapt to the quick and transparent watercolors. However, they do give you some bonuses - easy cleaning, time saving and cheaper raw materials. For all these reasons and the mere fascination of trying another medium, I am giving a serious try to watercolors. These are my first two attempts on artist-quality watercolor papers (Saunders rough 140lb). They are not great but I've got enough boost to try more fun stuff.

I was practicing flat wash and did a decent job with the background grey. So, I thought to add more stuff and make it a stand-alone painting.

I tries working on a design for my second attempt. This one is from Jack Reid's 'Lets get started' book examples. I changed the composition and was playing around with really bland mixes. Actually this was just from the left over of the first one. I did not realize it would be so dull after drying up. So, heres something that I learnt too :)