2971. Cuddling with Fei (watercolour painting + timelapse video)
I have both good and bad things to share about this.
Bad things: I didn't enjoy this process quite much. It's probably the first time in many, many years where I can't honestly say "it was nice," which is sad, because I always advocate for other artists/creators to "enjoy and have fun in what you're making!" and this time, I didn't do it myself.
I was wondering if my desk light – which is super warm – ruins my colour perception. I had this concern for a while, but when I checked what I painted the next morning with natural sunlight, it looked really nice. This was one example I remembered very well.
Good things: When I'm drafting this post (the morning after I finished the painting which I did late at night), I can see it from a better perspective. It was a good learning process. It's alright to ruin a painting or two sometimes, or my BTS posts would be pretty boring. :D I remember I have so many discarded sketches I ended up not sharing here, even when I wanted this site to be an archival site of everything I make – both good and bad.
I decided to look at this painting from a learning perspective, and it makes me feel good honestly. I wanted to do undertone layering, so I used the skin colour paint all over them (it's all in the timelapse video below.) And when I started working on the second layer, the colour didn't work. D:
In summary: I wanted warm blue tone to show Hai and Fei's warmth under a fullmoon light. But the undertone layer I laid before is very very yellow (I'd blame my desk light) and the blue paint ended up looking green. Of course, it would be green. I forgot that's how it works. Silly me...
I can't remember why I wanted to try doing layering in watercolour, but perhaps it's a trick I'm not going to do for a while, since it's a great disappointment this time. Also, with so much water used in this painting, layer after layer, the paper buckled, and that made me unhappy2. I lost the will to continue the painting. >_>
Not so bad, but also waaaay off from what I had in mind. Sigh.
Looking back, the art blocks I had in the past two years were probably how I faced a strange inability to be creative. I tried to solve it by refreshing my tools; creating some new brushes to make some doodles, getting some new affordable art supplies.
At some point, none of those worked and I stepped away from making things for a few days. The guilt crept up, especially when I promised to post daily in 2018 😔 I still want to do it, but when I can't make art, I really don't want to force myself or else I'd end up hating it.
I don't want to reach that point. I like to make things, and this feeling is very important for me.
Scanned version and the timelapse video of this painting below. 👇