Watercolor Play

(Hey! Two blog posts in one month??  The world must be ending!)   .... (See what I did there?? ;-o )


Hello again, art friends!!

So, I think I've mentioned before that watercolors are really not my forte. But I've also mentioned that I would really like to improve with watercolors. For many reasons, but the two main reasons for me are: 1, I find it relaxing to lay paint down on paper, even if the turn out isn't the best... xD   And 2, because most watercolor blends well with Copic Marker, and if I could get a feel for watercoloring, I might be able to save some on marker expense.

Sooo...

My biggest problem in watercolor has always been not being able to mix a nice skin tone. And that was frustrating, because most of my drawings need a smooth skin coloring!!! I watched this awesome tutorial by Megan Carrigan, a famous Disney art watercolorist, on how to properly mix skin color. And I had been making the mistake of trying to mix white and pink or yellow to get a peachy color for skin. So after watching her tutorial (which wasn't even very long or complicated!),  I decided to sit right down and try what she was doing, AND IT WORKED!!!!   I was very excited. The tutorial I watched was here...  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1LOsq-uh9M


Anyway, I had sketched this piece of Sailor Mercury from one of the manga volumes. It was sketched on watercolor paper, and so it seemed like a good subject to try watercoloring again.

And this picture above is right after I mixed skin tones and tested them.... Once I got the light consistency I wanted, I was shocked how good it looked after I applied it!!!!  I was so excited!!! I love learning new art abilities.. It feels like leveling up in a Mario game or something!!!   <3

The picture below was the finished watercolors. While I thought it looked nice, I knew that adding more depth to the colors would make it even nicer, and I also wanted to give the bubbles more of an edge. But I was afraid to try adding more with watercolor, because it looked nice enough that I didn't want to risk messing up if I didn't really know what I was doing  (and I probably don't xD).

But, I have used Copic and watercolor before, and so I added extra shading and detail with marker!

The finished version really seems to pop now with the added color from the Copics. I didn't touch up her skin much, just added a touch of shade here and there because I didn't want to lose the original color.  I'm very proud of this one, because I really worked to make the watercolors nice and even, and it turned out way better than I imagined!!!

So after I finished this, I decided to try a second one, again with a sketch taken from one of the manga books, this time using Mini Moon as the subject.

My process for this picture was pretty similar to the Mercury one, and so below is the final version after applying Copic!

These have been my projects over the last few days... and learning the new watercolor tips has helped already, because I've been able to apply it to some secret Christmas surprises for people. ;-)  I'm also enjoying using my new watercolor pens that hold water in them... very nice and very portable. We're getting ready to take a family vacation this week, so I'm excited to take these brushes with me and try some painting on the trip!!  ^^

It's always fun to learn something new!!!  I'm excited to start another drawing soon... maybe Sailor Saturn or Sailor V next... I've been on a Sailor Moon kick recently, it seems!!!  ;-)

-Stasia-Chan '15

The Screenshot Challenge

Things have been really busy most of the summer, so there wasn't a lot of time for serious art. But I finally got a break last week, where I got to spend almost the whole week drawing and catching up, and so I decided to finally do something I've been wanting to do for a long time:   A screenshot challenge!!!

To be honest, I'm not sure if this is really a thing or not. But I had this cute screenshot of Rei Hino from "Sailor Moon" saved on my tablet, and I thought it would be fun to try drawing it to see how close I could get to the original. And then I just finished watching the first season of "Sailor Moon", and so that kind of inspired me to go ahead and do this challenge.

                                                          This is the screenshot I used!!




   

The pencils and inking on this piece were fun to do.  I decided to use watercolor paper, since I wanted to color it with markers and know that watercolor paper doesn't make the colors bleed over as much.

My version ended up being more of a close up than the original screenshot, so I had to change a few things in the layout of the background. Some of the coloring was tricky, like the tree behind her, and also the building and sky we see in the distance has a purplish wash over the whole area... which is something I don't normally try to do, but looked really cool!!!

Once I got close to being finished, some of gray tone Copics started to get really streaky... because this paper is more durable and sucks in the ink, and also because there was so much gray area to be colored. So I was really upset... I had come this far and it was looking so nice, and I didn't want to leave it streaky looking!! So I pulled out my Prismacolor pencils and started trying to blend over top of the streaked gray areas. It took A LOT of blending, but I got it to look just like the marker, and so that is what I used to finish the sidewalk and street behind Rei!

 This is what the finished version looked like before I added a little bit of shading to her jumpers and skin...

... and then here is the final version with just a tad of shading. I decided to not go too heavy on the shading, since there was none in the screenshot!!!

This was just something really fun to do. I think that I could have gotten a bit closer in a few spots, but overall, I think I did a nice job, because this was something I was really into doing. When you're really into a project, you're going to do your best on it!!   =-)


Oh, and since we're talking about screenshots, here's another screenshot picture I did earlier this year, and just got around to coloring!!  This one is on regular sketch paper, so I colored it with Prismacolor pencil. I'm really satisfied with the blending on this, and that it looks so nice and smooth!!! 

I'm going to be working on another screenshot picture soon!!!  In the meantime, I'm working on a few other things that I've been wanting to catch up on, like my Alice in Wonderland picture, and some of my "Little Women" sketches. I'm also trying to sell some of the art that I have sitting on my desk taking up space, like sketch cards and a few cups that I did. I'm at a point right now where there isn't much going on and so I can focus a bit more on some of my forgotten art and not feel like I'm neglecting other stuff!!! 

Have you ever done something like the screenshot challenge?   If so, I'd love to hear about it or see it!!! 


-Stasia -Chan  '15