I have recently been painting with watercolors and it is difficult. Drawing has been more prominent in my work so have the tendency to want to draw with paint. But painting is a much different process of mixing color and learning how to work with the paint instead of fighting it. You have to be committed to what you are painting with watercolors because it is nearly impossible to correct or cover mistakes. Light colors do not work well over darks, so where you put your lights really requires planning. I am interesting in overcoming these challenges but I do think that oils are better suited to my style of painting.
I think this picture provides a good image of the scene and the process of capturing it.
Dave Says:
July 24th, 2006 at 8:34 amVisit Dave
You should try out gouache as a method, particularly if you’d like to add lighter colors on top of darker later in the process. Gouache paints are much more opaque (can be almost totally opaque) than watercolor. Their only drawback is that you cannot layer too much goache on top of itself, or the thick areas will crack as tempera would. I find a combination of watercolor and gouache to be a nice combo, but I’ve never done any oil painting.
Dave Says:
July 24th, 2006 at 8:48 amVisit Dave
I’d really like to see a larger image of your painting, too. Would be interesting to see it side-by-side with a photo of the subject area.