I used to hate half-pans, and suddenly find myself using them again. I only used Arches…then last week I ordered ten sheets of Waterford…and picked up a set of Black Velvet brushes and started using them instead of my sables. So…maybe it’s the time of the year…sort of mental spring cleaning?

From this ‘short time,’ inexperienced watercolor painter, I think it’s good to shake things up a bit. Could be springtime, boredom, subconscious experimentation, whatever! My bit of rebellion is coming in the form of no sketching before painting–just going for it. For this ‘tight’ and controlled painter, I’m way out of my comfort zone, but…I’m enjoying the additional challenge. My first challenge—the uncontrollable watercolor ‘beast’ to begin with, as Janine referred to.

~Carol

A few years ago I sketched traditionally to scratch out ideas for digital art.

Now, with 99% of my current work being done traditionally, I do studies in digital art programs to transfer to my watercolor paintings. I feel like sketching out entire compositions and doing value/color studies is just so fast in digital programs because of the variety of handy tools to edit your work with. If I want to plan out a “masterpiece” with regular ol’ paper and pencil, I’d have to re-draw the same thing multiple times, which is even more time-consuming, and changing up colors would require more effort than just clicking a button.

(That said, I still tend to avoid doing compositions digitally if I can. It just isn’t the same as tactile art!)

Now, with 99% of my current work being done traditionally, I do studies in digital art programs to transfer to my watercolor paintings.

How do you transfer your digital work to paper, Latte? Do you print out parts and then use transfer paper or…? Because this is something I would really like to do for the same reason you give–that no redrawing is required if I want to change things. And it would be easy to resize and shift elements around.

How do you transfer your digital work to paper, Latte? Do you print out parts and then use transfer paper or…? Because this is something I would really like to do for the same reason you give–that no redrawing is required if I want to change things. And it would be easy to resize and shift elements around.

Probably “transfer” isn’t the best word I could have used. I meant that for complicated compositions where I have to combine lots of different references and change colors and such, it’s just easier to plan it out digitally. I still re-draw it when I go to the painting. Unfortunately, I don’t the equipment to print out guidelines directly on watercolor paper!

I used to do very careful, detailed pencil drawings before I started painting. Not just the ouline, but a full, completed pencil drawing. I finished one piece like this that I was really pleased with, a couple of years ago, and decided I just didn’t want to work like that anymore. Since then I’ve let colour do the work and I paint a lot of my detail freehand.