I had some time one evening, and decided to sketch up a quick action pose for Winsome. Being in the mood for a change, I thought I would try watercolor pencils my wife gave me for my birthday. Of course, I did not bother reading the directions or really looking up how exactly to prep watercolor paper… I figured I would just jump in and see what happened. Once again, I shot myself in the foot!
The things are more like pencils than watercolors in my opinion… colors do not wash/run together as much as true watercolor paint, no matter how much water you add. All you wind up doing is burning a water hole in the paper. These actually dry out, and you can color over those areas without mixing colors. They also look great when wet, but like regular pencil when they dry again. After I made the attached mess, THEN I read the instructions on how to pre-wet and stretch the paper, apply the pencils, etc. I have a sheet ready and taped down, but likely will not try again for a few weeks.
In the end, I thought I would try the same drawing again digitally. In a future post I will show the progress pics and discuss the details. The pencil sketch took ten minutes, the watercolor perhaps 2 hours, and the digital drawing at least 6 hours overall (I made different versions).