My last post showed off the step-by-step process for painting my "A" through "H" rainbow alphabet watercolors; today it's all about the next 8 letters: "I" through "P"!
The process for making these paintings is basically identical to what I did for "A" through "H" (though I did learn with those first 8 letters that it's better to wait until all of the backgrounds are dry before doing the "paint splatter" step). The first step however, is always the same: taping down the watercolor paper to keep the paintings flat while I paint.
I used a wet-on-wet technique and six tubes of watercolor paint to create the rainbow backgrounds: red, yellow, light green, dark green, blue, and violet. I tried to keep the colors as bright and saturated as possible, knowing that they would fade a little as they dried. The variations in color that you see from one painting to the next is due to the amount of water used in the initial water-only layer, before adding pigment down. (When the water is clear, it can be hard to tell how much water you have on your paper!)
As with before, you can see how the color fades as it dries by looking at the first few paintings I completed. By the time I finished the "J" the "I" that I painted first had already started fading a little - and by the time I got to "K" and "L" the "I" and "J" were looking a lot lighter!
Here are all eight paintings with the rainbow backgrounds complete:
Once the backgrounds started to dry, I went in to add some paint splatter - both as smaller flicks of paint and bigger, darker drops.
You can see how I focused more on the first 6 letters during my first round of paint splatter, since the "O" and "P," whose backgrounds I'd painted last, weren't quite dry enough yet. The second picture below shows what the paintings looked like after I left them for a couple hours, and then returned to add more paint splatter, especially to the "O" and "P."
As with the first 8 letters, I finished off these paintings with some thin orange and green Sharpie lines, to help straighten up some of the wavier letter edges, and add some more visual rhythm and interest to the paintings.
Here are the finished watercolor paintings:
Check back soon for the last 10 letters - "Q" through "Z"!
The process for making these paintings is basically identical to what I did for "A" through "H" (though I did learn with those first 8 letters that it's better to wait until all of the backgrounds are dry before doing the "paint splatter" step). The first step however, is always the same: taping down the watercolor paper to keep the paintings flat while I paint.
I used a wet-on-wet technique and six tubes of watercolor paint to create the rainbow backgrounds: red, yellow, light green, dark green, blue, and violet. I tried to keep the colors as bright and saturated as possible, knowing that they would fade a little as they dried. The variations in color that you see from one painting to the next is due to the amount of water used in the initial water-only layer, before adding pigment down. (When the water is clear, it can be hard to tell how much water you have on your paper!)
As with before, you can see how the color fades as it dries by looking at the first few paintings I completed. By the time I finished the "J" the "I" that I painted first had already started fading a little - and by the time I got to "K" and "L" the "I" and "J" were looking a lot lighter!
Here are all eight paintings with the rainbow backgrounds complete:
Once the backgrounds started to dry, I went in to add some paint splatter - both as smaller flicks of paint and bigger, darker drops.
You can see how I focused more on the first 6 letters during my first round of paint splatter, since the "O" and "P," whose backgrounds I'd painted last, weren't quite dry enough yet. The second picture below shows what the paintings looked like after I left them for a couple hours, and then returned to add more paint splatter, especially to the "O" and "P."
As with the first 8 letters, I finished off these paintings with some thin orange and green Sharpie lines, to help straighten up some of the wavier letter edges, and add some more visual rhythm and interest to the paintings.
Here are the finished watercolor paintings:
Check back soon for the last 10 letters - "Q" through "Z"!
No comments:
Post a Comment