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I know that a lot of you love the WC crayons. I have nothing but trouble with them. However, I am going to try the SU! watercolor paper and hope that this helps me solve my problems with watercoloring. Right now I have one family of crayons. I'm wondering if I should invest in the neutrals at this time, or do you think I can get along without them for a while? I guess I'm thinking mostly of the black. Do you all use the neutral colours a lot? Help me decide, please!
I just cant seem to watercolor ... I cant explain it. I guess its the look ... they look like someone did it who didnt know how to watercolor, lol. Maybe I just need more practice. I have always tried it on cheap WC paper though, so I am going to try the SU paper and see if that helps me.
Are you coloring, then blending - or are you using an aquapainter and lifting the color directly off the crayon? I get much better results using the second way.
__________________ Heidi My gallery There's no 'I' in 'team'. But then there's no 'I' in 'useless smug colleague', either. And there's four in 'platitude-quoting idiot'. Go figure.
I'm using an aquapainter, lifting the colour directly off the crayon ... I really think maybe it is a combination of the paper I am using and the fact that I just need to keep practicing. If I dont catch on soon though, I'm gonna ditch the crayons I think!
Keep trying - I hardly use any of my other watercolor techniques anymore, you just have to find the way that works best for you. As for the neutrals - I bought the WWC as soon as they were available last year - and used them constantly. I used them all year, without really missing the neutrals - then I got the neutrals on the first day for ordering - and I haven't used them yet!
__________________ Heidi My gallery There's no 'I' in 'team'. But then there's no 'I' in 'useless smug colleague', either. And there's four in 'platitude-quoting idiot'. Go figure.
Thanks inkylady, I will keep practicing and hopefully one of these days I will get the hang of it. I just find it frustrating because everyone loves them so much and I WANT to love them too! Okay, I think I will wait to order the neutrals to see if I can actually get this technique to work for me first. A lot of times I order things that I "have to have now" and then dont use them for a long long time ...
We all went without neutrals for a year. I'd say practice up and if you can get to where you like the look, then invest. In the meantime, if you need black, use your inkpad and your aquapainter and if you need white use your white craft pad and blender pen/aquapainter.
__________________ Bran Bran
I know that there are people who do not love their fellow man, and I hate people like that.
~Tom Lehrer
If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong.
katrs5, thank you! Duh, I am not swift at all when it comes to watercoloring ... I never thought about using my inkpad if I need black etc. Thanks for that tip - I am gonna practice up for sure!
Hey Deb! Since you said you were having touble w/ the "look", I thought maybe somethings that have helped me would help you too;
1. Pick a point of light, and work from that. What I mean is to imagine a light source coming from one direction of the image and shade according to that....so, if you have a vase w/ flowers and your point of light is coming from the top L corner, the top L of your flowers will be lighter, as will the top L of the vase.
2. Start w/ a medium wet aquapainter....too much water can ruin it faster than anything! And, if its too dry, you can always add a little more water a little at a time.
3. start w/ simple images to get the techniques down, then move to more difficult/intricate.
Those are a few i can think of off the top of my head...will think somemore on it....HTH!
__________________ Addison's Mommy----the person formerly known as Carrie! ;0)
The best tip my watercolor teacher ever gave me was, after stamping the image, to lay down a "wash" of plain water on the paper and let it dry. (Translation: "paint" the whole watercolor paper with water.) This prepares the paper and allows a little more time to play with the color on the paper before the colors sinks in. Otherwise, the unprepared paper sucks in the color almost immediately without much time to blend. I'm sure a professional artist has the skill to work without prepping, but I need all the time I can get to fix my mistakes! If you get paint where you don't want it, quickly dab at it with a clean wet paper towel which should soak up most of the color. With watercoloring, less is more. Watercolor paper will take a lot of abuse, but you want the layers of color to be transparent and simple. My biggest problem is adding too many layers until I've made a muddy mess. Just keep working at it and study a lot of different artists here on the gallery and even maybe sign out a watercolor book from the library. Remember, nobody was ever born a watercolor artist! Every artist has to start from scratch and practice, practice, practice.
To add to some already great advise...a lot (if not most) stamps already have the shading built in for you. If you take your crayon and scribble color in those shaded areas, you can then use your aqua painter or watercolor brush to blend and pull the color out from the shaded areas...The darker areas will have the most color and the lighter, less-shaded areas will have lighter color. You can then draw color directly from your crayon to darken some areas, add color variants and highlights, etc. Hope that makes sense!
These ideas are great. Some, I have never thought of.
When I use mine, I color the image in with the various colors. For instance, if I am coloring in a flower, I add the lightest color to the middle (unless it's like when I made the IFB flower look like a pansey) and then add the darker color to the ends. I use an aqua painter as that's the only blending tool I have right now. I try to wipe off the tip in between so the colors don't blend in too much and you can't see there are two colors. I have the whole set before they split them up. I haven't purchased the neutrals yet.
The easiest way for me to work with the WCC is to pull the color off the tip of the crayon with the Aquapainter. I find that the blender pens really don't do much with them because the color is so vibrant and deep.
__________________ Erika Martin * Vermont * SU! Demo * My blog: Stampin' Mama
Thank you for all the tips ladies. I'm ordering the wc paper on Friday night ... and hope to be practicing within the next week or two! Thanks again for all the replies to my deficiency!!!!! I appreciate everyone's help.
I am eating up all these great tips, as I am in the same boat as Deb--want to love watercoloring but not getting good at it. Of course, it intimidates me so much that I hardly ever USE the technique...other than at stamp club when we do it. I always live through it there, so am not sure why I'm not loosening up about doing it at home. Too much uncertainty involved, I guess. I will keep trying...
__________________ Lauri G.
Blessed wife and mom
TAC demo #2239
WCC question
