Something a little different: watercolors
For the past year and a half I've been quite smitten by watercolors. I haven't talked much about that on Patreon because I still feel like a beginner and because I've been documenting the development of the Possum and Magpie Pop-Up zine (I will soon have some for sale by the way).
I got started with a cheap watercolor set I had lying around and by coloring some pencil drawings I had in my sketchbook at the time. I really liked how it brought them to life so I started diving a little deeper into the medium. Soon after, I got a nicer set of professional watercolors because the colors are brighter and they are easier to work with. For a while now I've been sort of trying to find my style.
Watercolors appeal to me for the following reasons:
It's a very portable medium and requires minimal effort to keep them on your desk. You just need a little water, a couple of brushes and a clean cloth.
Watercolors seem to have a mind of their own. Sometimes you get unexpected results. That means there is a play between control and letting go that I find attractive.
They forced me to learn more about color theory (watching the color.nerd's has been a joy in this regard) and to expand the palettes I use in my drawings.
I feel like I can go in many different directions with watercolors, like whimsical illustrations, geometric patterns and even sketching from real life.
I had a surprising win when experimenting with geometric patterns: I made a short one-minute video showing how I used heat erasable pens to trace a pattern that got a ridiculous number of views. Here is the final piece:
And you can watch the video on youTube, Instagram or the clock app (it's the same video, you choose the poison)
Of all the books and tutorials about watercolors I've perused lately, my favorite by far is Urban Watercolor Sketching by Felix Scheinberger (the title sells it short I think, it is about urban sketching but it's also a good introduction to the medium in general). This is the book that pushed me to take my sketchbook and watercolor set on a recent trip to visit my family in Colombia.
In between social engagements, I managed to steal little moments to sketch views and objects. I know this kind of thing is not quite what I'm known for, but I still wanted to share them with you. I think there is a little charm in their simplicity and I'd like to take that into other things I do.
This was a really fast sketch of the gate at LAX I did while I waited to board the plane to Colombia:
There is a display case at my mother's house with all sorts of things. It's always fun to draw messy collections:
I went to visit a friend's place in the countryside and they had some plantain trees. One thing I like about watercolors is that you can try to capture the general mood without worrying too much about accuracy:
I spent time specifically in Pereira, which is a city in the foothills of the Andes mountains, in a prominent coffee growing area of the country. I drew this one from a place overlooking the hills on a rainy day. It was still very green:
I didn't draw enough food and drink (I don't think the folks I was hanging out with had that much patience) but I did attempt to sketch this interesting iced espresso drink with raw sugar and a candied orange. For a great watercolor sketcher of foods check out Becky Cao's videos, like this one at a cat cafe, I really like the kind of mindfulness and spontaneity she bring's to her sketchbook and that's what I was trying to do here, I even put some coffee on the page which explains the dripping letters:
I found this bar of soap at my mother's house. Most of my Colombian friends that saw it really got a kick out of it, as this laundry bar soap hasn't changed in decades and people claim it has hundreds of uses (reminds me of Dr Bronner's soap in the US). It's called "Jabon Rey", king soap. Is this my Warhol moment?
I'm not a smoker, but I had to draw the box. It had one of those scary pictures in the corner, a mouth with cancer or such, I wonder if those really work:
Another nice view of the mountains:
A semi-finished sketch at my mother's house. Her name is Amparo:
On the way back I did a quick ball-point pen sketch at the Pereira Airport:
I hope you got some joy out of seeing these sketches. I definitely want to incorporate more watercolors into my work and these feel like exploratory baby steps. That geometric watercolor in particular is an example of the kind of mix of digital and analog mediums I'm very interested in. And for some time now, I've been thinking about ways to mix watercolors and pop-up techniques, so hopefully we'll see some of that in the near future.
Thank you!
Federico