3 Sept 2017, 21:52
My latest attempt at watercolor. Mixed media with some pen and ink and colored pencil. Note: the girls pose started off as a study of another artist's sketch. I kept the pose and changed the character and added the boy. 
Newest attempt at watercolor
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My latest attempt at watercolor. Mixed media with some pen and ink and colored pencil. Note: the girls pose started off as a study of another artist's sketch. I kept the pose and changed the character and added the boy.
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Really nice
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@evilrobot Great Illustration
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@evilrobot great piece, really getting control of that water color.
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Cute! I like the effect you got with the mixed media!
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Gorgeous. You may have ended up neutralising the ground a bit though? Compared to th rest o the picture it's gone slightly dull. That's my only thought and it's a very minor one! Something I found is to mess around with adding gum Arabic to the water at about 10 parts water to 1 part gum,. And if you want to lift off cleanly use things like lift off prep fluid (Windsor and newton) and gum Arabic on the watercolour paper.
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@evilrobot I like this! I have yet to dip my hands fully into the medium myself. Keep posting along with what you've experienced! I'd like to know your journey.
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@andyg What do you mean by lift off cleanly? I'd be interested in using watercolor with more control.
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@harveywalls you have to check the permanent rating on the watercolours and some just won't lift. But basically so long as you use really thick high quality watercolour paper that has been sized well, then you prep it well first, you can even let the watercolour dry and still be able to rewet it and lift it off. Doing it over and over will damage the paper, but you can even put down layers of water colour, then lift off different layers to create blends and shifts in colour. You need to experiment a bit.
Here's an article I wrote and a Pic showing the technique
https://onegraydot.com/watercolour-experiments-lifting-preparation-fluid-gum-arabic/
(the picture is a copy of a character by Rodney Matthews, but it's done in watercolour using lift off technique...so the purple for example is painted flat, allowed to dry, then rewet and lift off until I got the lightness I wanted. Kinda photoshop dodge tool in the real world...and to some extent you can even do layers) -
Looks great! Lovely work, as always.
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Thank you very much for the comments and watercolor tips. I was wondering if I could get your opinions on the style of the image. I've intentionally made the lines rough and sketchy and I've always been someone who has tried to get super smooth line work. Trying to decide if I'm going to keep the sketchy lines from now on or go back to the clean thicker line look like this example. Any thoughts?
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Probably just a matter of taste. I like them both, but the sketchy line seems to have more life and energy.
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I'm the wrong person to ask. I love a lively line!
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The sketchy lines match your overall style better I think
More natural. The cleaner lines are maybe a little too thick ? And maybe a little too uniform (I would try varying the thickness of the line a little more, it would look more "organic") -
I dunno. Both styles work for me, because your execution of all the elements are excellent. Like Kat said, it's a matter of taste at this point.
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I am a sucker for sketchy lines myself, but it will come down to what you enjoy doing most. If you naturally lean toward the smoother lines, then I say stick with that. I would like to know your motivation for wanting to change.
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@evilrobot These look great! - i really like the slight ink bleed and feel it goes very well and looks natural with the textured background - this looks pro to me.
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@evilrobot When I sketch it's all about the shaky line, but when I go to line my work I alway end up doing thick smooth lines. but I think you sketchy line style really works well.
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@evilrobot Looking great!