Watercolors and Drawing

           "Can I still learn watercoloring if I can't draw?" I get asked this question a lot and I have seen this question asked on watercolor groups a lot. The answer is simply yes. You don't need to know how to draw just to learn how to watercolor. In this two part post, I will show you how to do that.

          Let me start by asking one question first: Have you tried learning how to draw? If not there are many videos on youtube that can help you with that as well as many great courses online. You can also find amazing courses on Udemy, SkillShare, and Domestika. There are also many amazing books for the people who like to learn that way. Now let us say you tried all that and STILL you can't draw a straight line. This is when you can go through the route I will explain here.

          I CAN'T DRAW. Okay, but that doesn't mean you can stop from learning about watercolors and making art. So how can you do that if you can't draw? It depends on what you are planning to do with that art. 

          If you are doing it for yourself and you are not going to sell your art, then there are people on ETSY who sell line art which you  can trace and use watercolor techniques to color. They give you permission to use it for personal use only and if you share your work online to show friends always link back to the original artist of the line art that you traced and acknowledge their work. Another thing that I use is stamps and stamp sets. There are amazing ones in different shops online.

          If you are planning to sell your art then there are a few things you can do. You can use your own personal photographs that you took and trace those, or you can look for pictures that are free to use commercially online and trace those. Make sure to always document what you did and where you got your elements. Let me give an example. When I look online for pictures to use freely I usually have a picture in my head that I want to draw. I will look for pictures that have the parts that I need. Like I could take the mountain from one picture and add that to the trees that I had taken a picture of personally and liked then add a house from a different picture and so on until my picture is complete. Sometimes not everything works well together and I change things or add or subtract things. When the line art that I traced from different elements looks like the picture in my head then I start using my watercolor techniques to color it. Be extra careful that the things you use are free to use commercially.  This is mostly theory so the next post I will explain a little more with actual practical examples and some of the tools I use to achieve my own art that speaks to me.

Monthly Update (February 2021)

          Last month was a complete disaster when it came to my studies, my blogs, and my journalling. I mostly failed at adulting in that month. 

As you can see a lot of half done boxes and crosses. The only thing I really kept up was practicing my languages via the apps. 

          I decided that some bits of what I did last month were good but the rest had to be changed so that is what I did for this month as a trial.

          First let me start with the monthly review. I did that using my new glass dip pen set. 

I loved using the set, and it worked wonderfully with my new journals from Notebook Therapy. Some of the inks did ghost but not all of them. 

I had half a page of nothing so I decided to try and see how much water the pages of the journal can take...boy they can take a lot of punishment. I piled on the water and it didn’t warp much. 

Notice that because some of the inks had ghosted and I added water to the mix they showed up even more but the words on the previous page stayed just the same. So this journal can really take a lot of punishment. 

          Next I decided to work on my February cover page. I had a picture in my head of what I wanted to do then I sketched it out and used my new Ohuhu Acrylic markers and stamps to work on the picture. I like the end result!

          I also decided to not do a daily tracker but instead use a new format that I have been playing with last month. I have a weekly study log and I kind of have what should be done on any given day but if I don’t finish it by that day then I have the rest of the week to catch up. The important thing is that by Saturday everything has to be done. I did keep my monthly calendar the same with a little tweak to make the page look even and the boxes a little bigger.

The next spread is my goals, blog ideas and books read spread. These have not really changed.

I’m hoping this new way of doing things will help me get motivated and going.