[frivolity] messing around with colour
Nov. 12th, 2019 08:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaberettA friend recently had a birthday party of the "sit in a garden and Use Up Some Of My Art Supplies" variety, and I spent a nontrivial chunk of time frozen up in terror at the idea of Doing Visual Art In Front Of Other People, because I would be Bad at it and they would Judge Me.
Eventually I screwed up my courage to the sticking point, comandeered a small greetings card set up to be coloured in & the watercolour pencils & a mug of water & a paintbrush, and started going.
And... really enjoyed it? I was terrified, but also I... enjoyed it? I enjoyed it.
I like botanical illustration. I like watercolours. I've been too intimidated to actually pick sketching back up since I stopped doing field sketches for work. (Apparently drawing landscapes for the purposes of geology doesn't ping my Art Inferiority Complex, who even knows, even as I spend a lot of time and effort and energy and care over Picking The Right Colours.)
I was talking about this with C, when I went down to Kew with her to look at Chihuly's art & colours & light just brazenly Out There All Over The Place, as we were browsing the shop; I grumbled about the lack of Proper Botanical Illustration colouring books.
A few days later she texted asking for my full postal address; a few days after that, as I've mentioned, a copy The Kew Gardens Flowering Plants Colouring Book showed up for me. It was second-hand and very cheap, because it had already been partly coloured in, which -- as I've also mentioned -- was pretty much perfect, because it meant I wouldn't freeze up in a panic about Ruining It.
sebastienne and me_and both got me watercolour pencils; I recalled that a local charity shop had a bunch of decent paint brushes at half price; and I have been ever-so-slowly starting to work my way through the book. I started out with beginning to fill in bits the previous owner had partially coloured; there's some works-in-progress ongoing, there. I'm also, in a more concerted fashion, starting to work my way through the untouched pages, one by one, in order, thereby circumventing the decision paralysis of getting caught between "I want to do the plants I'm most enthusiastic about first because I'm most enthusiastic about them" and "I want to do the plants I'm most enthusiastic about last so I'll have learned as much as possible by the time I get to them".
Of course, immediately after scanning this I spotted the bud I'd managed to skip over, but There We Go.
I have learned a lot over the course of gradually filling this out, including: what specialist watercolour paper is made out of, and why; the different preparations of watercolour paper, and resulting effects; why people like sable paint brushes, and how they're made, and why they're not currently (readily) available in the USA; and a bunch of theory of How Pigments Even.
I'm trying to work out how to balance competing factors of "colour intensity" versus "structural integrity of wood-based paper" (with a side of "how do I get the darker shades the example images are printed with?" to which I think the answer might be "own a bunch of darker pigments"). I'm messing about with techniques (laying down dry, then painting over; picking up pigment from the pencil on a damp paintbrush and then painting with that; drawing onto wet paper...). I'm comparing the properties of the two sets of pencils. I think I learned a lot between the right-hand flower and the left-hand flower.
I'm really enjoying myself.
Eventually I screwed up my courage to the sticking point, comandeered a small greetings card set up to be coloured in & the watercolour pencils & a mug of water & a paintbrush, and started going.
And... really enjoyed it? I was terrified, but also I... enjoyed it? I enjoyed it.
I like botanical illustration. I like watercolours. I've been too intimidated to actually pick sketching back up since I stopped doing field sketches for work. (Apparently drawing landscapes for the purposes of geology doesn't ping my Art Inferiority Complex, who even knows, even as I spend a lot of time and effort and energy and care over Picking The Right Colours.)
I was talking about this with C, when I went down to Kew with her to look at Chihuly's art & colours & light just brazenly Out There All Over The Place, as we were browsing the shop; I grumbled about the lack of Proper Botanical Illustration colouring books.
A few days later she texted asking for my full postal address; a few days after that, as I've mentioned, a copy The Kew Gardens Flowering Plants Colouring Book showed up for me. It was second-hand and very cheap, because it had already been partly coloured in, which -- as I've also mentioned -- was pretty much perfect, because it meant I wouldn't freeze up in a panic about Ruining It.
sebastienne and me_and both got me watercolour pencils; I recalled that a local charity shop had a bunch of decent paint brushes at half price; and I have been ever-so-slowly starting to work my way through the book. I started out with beginning to fill in bits the previous owner had partially coloured; there's some works-in-progress ongoing, there. I'm also, in a more concerted fashion, starting to work my way through the untouched pages, one by one, in order, thereby circumventing the decision paralysis of getting caught between "I want to do the plants I'm most enthusiastic about first because I'm most enthusiastic about them" and "I want to do the plants I'm most enthusiastic about last so I'll have learned as much as possible by the time I get to them".
Of course, immediately after scanning this I spotted the bud I'd managed to skip over, but There We Go.
I have learned a lot over the course of gradually filling this out, including: what specialist watercolour paper is made out of, and why; the different preparations of watercolour paper, and resulting effects; why people like sable paint brushes, and how they're made, and why they're not currently (readily) available in the USA; and a bunch of theory of How Pigments Even.
I'm trying to work out how to balance competing factors of "colour intensity" versus "structural integrity of wood-based paper" (with a side of "how do I get the darker shades the example images are printed with?" to which I think the answer might be "own a bunch of darker pigments"). I'm messing about with techniques (laying down dry, then painting over; picking up pigment from the pencil on a damp paintbrush and then painting with that; drawing onto wet paper...). I'm comparing the properties of the two sets of pencils. I think I learned a lot between the right-hand flower and the left-hand flower.
I'm really enjoying myself.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-12 09:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-12 09:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-12 09:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-12 10:11 pm (UTC)What a pretty illustration! In particular, the shading on the roots and leaves has caught my eye.
I hope you continue to enjoy it.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-12 10:19 pm (UTC)Ha, yes, the flowers were definitely Most Difficult and Most Experimental. ;) I was very pleased with how the leaves & roots came out!
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-13 05:35 am (UTC)*borrows to add to personal vocabulary*
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-13 11:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-12 10:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-13 08:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-12 10:48 pm (UTC)I always scroll from the top down, and I kept reading and going, I hope there's a picture, I hope there's a picture, and there was!
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-13 08:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-12 11:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-12 11:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-13 08:35 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-13 10:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-13 08:35 am (UTC)Am very up for Announcements about other botanical works released as colouring books - I'm Very Into the realism, where quite a lot of colouring books with botanical themes are markedly simplified/stylised.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-13 12:22 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-13 08:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-13 12:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-13 08:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-13 10:02 am (UTC)Took me ages to find the bud you'd skipped over and I wouldn't have noticed it at all if you hadn't said.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-13 10:10 am (UTC)I have now Fixed It in person :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-13 11:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-13 11:59 am (UTC)The actual-black is stippled in print and then I colour over it, it is not All Me, and thank you. <3
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-13 07:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-13 08:42 pm (UTC)oh it absolutely DOES ping the issues, I'm just Working On Them.
Art therapy, if you will. ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-13 08:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-18 07:34 am (UTC)