Learning

I started my One Hundred Day Project of Watercolour Ladies full of enthusiasm. I was excited about learning more about watercolour and portraits. 45 or so days into my project I was unmotivated and struggling to continue. It just wasn’t as much fun as I expected it to be. While some days I totally loved my painting, most of the time I struggled. I still posted each one, ’cause that’s the deal. I dragged myself to Day 50 (a full 10 days late!), and then couldn’t move on.

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Finally, it clicked. I needed support. I had believed that I would just naturally get better by force of making more and more, but nope, that didn’t happen. At least not as much as I expected it to. When it did seem as if I moved forward one day, I slid back the next three.

So I did what I should have done at the beginning, and signed up for a watercolour portrait class at one of my favourite sites, Domestika. (Check them out, they have a wide range of creative classes at very affordable prices).

I started the class on Monday, and six days later I am more than happy with my progress, In fact I am pretty amazed.

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Even though I wanted to jump into the actual painting portrait part of the class, I restrained myself and did all the steps. I’m glad I did because I have learnt so much about facial structure, and how to translate what I see to a 2D page.

I’ve been posting all the steps as part of my project. and yesterday I did my very first portrait.

I still have a lot to learn but I am motivated to keep going now. Today I did some simple colour mixing exercises to work out the best way to mix skin tones. Tomorrow I’ll work on another portrait.

I’m really glad that I didn’t give up!