Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Goddess Painting II

One of the watercolor techniques I love to use (loooove) is making an effect in the paint by using salt. Let's use the sky in "Bedtime Story" as an example since it's easy to see where the salt was applied:


This technique is pretty straight forward and just really fun to do. The brushes I use for this are my favorite Japanese goat mop brushes.


Once I got these babies I wondered how the hell I'd lived so long without them. They are THAT AWESOME.

So like I said, this is simple and fun. I dip my goat mop in water and wet the area of the paper I want covered in paint. I then take the mop and literally throw/splatter the colors I want on the damp surface.

I take the paper and move the paint around on it so the colors run into one another a little bit. Lay the paper back down flat and sprinkle salt (sea salt will give you a better effect than table salt) over your colors.

You'll see the salt suck up color right away. You can either let it air dry at this stage but I like to blow dry it as I found the hot air gave the effect a more crisp look.

Once dry I use a paper towel to GENTLY scrape the salt off the paper. Then you can go back in and add shadows or highlights to any areas you feel needs it.

I love how this always turns out and the best part is it's different every time you do it.

I did this lightly for the background behind my Goddess and then dried her.


I also worked on her eyes first because I feel if the eyes don't look life like then the rest of the painting will suffer because of it.

I've always had this obsession with faces and eyes and the messages you get from them. Don't mind my crazy :)

Next step, her skin tone. In watercolor you work in layers from light to dark so a quick light colored wash is done with a bit of shading done here and there.


I often turn my work as I go along and squint to see how the lights and darks stand out which is why this was taken upside down.

Often if you look at a painting from a different angle you'll see areas that need more work more than you would if you looked at it the same way all the time.


I repeat the process, feeling her out until I like the look of her, blend a bit of pink into her cheeks, and take a break on the skin to work on other areas like her lips.

I loved how she was turning out and then added eyebrows and lashes and just wasn't happy with her anymore. So she'll be worked on more later today and hopefully I can fix my crap ups.

We'll see how it goes.

~*L*~

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