Self Portraits

Back to the drawing board! Literally. I wanted to sharpen up my drawing and observation skills using the challenging watercolour portrait.

While pencil is easy to control value with in a drawing, the jump to watercolour is a big one for me. Nevertheless, after a few cartoony attempts, I was able to put together something resembling my likeness.

This month, I discovered a lovely YouTube channel called Cafe Watercolour run by Eric Yi Lin. He is an expert and does lovely demos.

I started with a pencil drawing using an H and then a 2B pencil from a reference photo on my phone. I then added watercolour in layers, very gingerly, with great restraint. I did not slap colour around like I usually do with mixed media acrylics which are easier to control and layer over. With watercolour, you usually only have one shot to get value and colour right. Here, I used M.Graham watercolours on Arches paper (watercolour block) this piece is 7”x10”.

Disciplining myself to work this way will hopefully improve my observation and hand eye coordination to help make confident strokes with my larger mixed media pieces to come.

Moving on, I know, I know I said i’d do workshops but I think i’ll change it to a process video demo instead, featured on YouTube. I just need to get into the habit of recording my work. This way it’s free, casual and easier to commit to for both me and you, as the viewer. I hope to see you there soon and thank you for your patience.

I hope you are inspired to challenge yourself, perhaps to do a watercolour portrait (!), the process is worth it no matter the result.

Til next time, happy painting!

Meghana