AckeeandMangu: Fun with Watercolors

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I went to Michaels again, that den of sin and crafts. No matter how hard I try, that place calls my damn name.

I'm on the kick of loving myself these days. Trying to build myself back up after our most recent loss, and all the other ones. Today, inspired by my previous post, I woke up determined to have a date with myself. I'm not gonna lie, it was hard getting out of the bed. It's hard getting out of the bed most mornings and this morning was no different. The metformin is also making me feel more nauseous this time around so I pretty much feel like crap a lot of the time :-(

I did that positive self-talk crap and pretended like I was getting ready to jump in the rope during double dutch...

...and finally...SUCCESS!

I hope none of my future clients find this blog. I promise you, I'm a professional!

I found myself on Columbus Avenue in Michaels and noticed right away that they rearranged the store. I was not pleased because I just mastered the layout! So now I was totally confused and wandering aimlessly around the store.

I've been stalking watercolor painting for the past few days. I thought it was a simple enough medium because you can't really go wrong with paint and water. In the end I escaped Michaels with a watercolor notebook, a pack of brushes, paints and a paint holder, all under 20 buckaroos!! I was very proud of myself. Be sure to listen to some kick ass music while doing this project. It just won't work any other way.

Here we go:

This photo was my inspiration. I've never really drawn anything before except during an art class in high school. I'm old as hell now so none of that knowledge is readily available. I figured it couldn't be that hard. It's basically circles in a bowl. You could also just get some tracing paper and trace it out.

So, I drew a light, rough sketch on computer paper, instead of on the actual watercolor paper. I wanted to save my paper in case the drawing was a hot mess. Of course, I ignored completely the invention of the eraser. I taped my computer sketch to my watercolor paper just so I could keep it in the notebook. Sometimes, my overachiever tendencies get the better of me.

I kept a cup of water to clean my brush between colors, my palette plate, paper towel and paints nearby.

I decided to make a bowl of lemons and limes. So I chose yellow, blue and white and squeezed a little bit of each onto my palette. I also added a little yellow ochre with white to make beige for the bowl.

I had a little spot of yellow by itself, yellow and blue to make green (which I had to look up on the internet!) and a smidge of white and yellow ochre to make beige.

Starting with the bowl, I dipped my brush in my water jar and dripped about two drops into my yellow ochre and white until it was in liquid form (Is it just me or is it getting hot in here!?)

Start filling in the outline of the bowl with your beige color (or any other color you want). I don't know where that red smidge came from but it became the background color because it was there.

Here's a closer look at the bowl and my tiny, childlike fingers.

Before you know it, the bowl is done and we can move on to the lemons and limes. The great thing about watercolors is their fast drying time. By the time I finished painting the bowl it was dry. Yay!

I washed off my brush in water, just shake it around in the water a few times. Dip your brush in the yellow paint and paint some lemons. I decided to go with four lemons and three limes.

Clean your brush, mix your blue and green and a little white to make a light green and paint your limes. This picture was taken when the limes were still freshly painted. It dries much lighter.

Since I already had that red outlier, I decided to go with it. Why not? You only live once. I mixed up a smidge of yellow, cadmium red and white to make a medium orange color. I find it easier to outline the art in the orange first so you're not worrying about ruining your fruit with your orange.