What can I say? I just didn’t have the patience required for today’s portrait. I probably should have picked something a bit simpler. I’ve just been meaning to take a shot at doing a portrait in watercolour for a while now so I figured it was time to bite the bullet. Unfortunately I ran out of energy/patience/enthusiasm about a quarter of the way through.
I think the main issue was that I didn’t start with a good line drawing. This was a difficult portrait and I just couldn’t get a likeness at all. It’s not very motivating to keep working on a portrait when you just can’t see a likeness to the subject at all. We got off on the wrong foot and I just never managed to turn it around. I was actually tempted to give up on it sooner but I tried to push on a little further. This is as close to finished as it’s going to get now though. I have officially given up on it.
I did, however get a chance to experiment with some more methods of getting colours. I’m not sure I was too successful this time but it’s always interesting to try different approaches. One of these days I’ll figure out how to coax the right colours out of my watercolours.
One Stumble at a Time 
I like that image. I like that I can see emotion and the proportions seems right. Nice work.
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Thanks. I just don’t think that any of the features worked out right. I’m glad you like it though 🙂
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I wouldn’t even try a wc portrait. I give you lots of credit. Plus, I think you’ve done a great job. I think wc may be your medium! I agree with Kirk, this one looks real, proportions look good, I think the colors look right, and I’m definitely feeling emotion from the face. Not perfect, but who/what is? I think you’ve done a really fine job with it!
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Thank you! I appreciate the encouragement and I’m glad you like my watercolour work.
It can be a difficult medium to work with and I definitely have a lot to learn but I do feel a natural inclination towards it because it was the first medium I really earnestly tried to work with as a child. It’s also the first medium I ever produced a painting I was proud of in.
I’ll keep trying with it and maybe I’ll be able to produce things more in line with what I’m aiming for in time. I just need to tone down my expectations a little bit. That and figure out how to mix the colours I want. That’s an important part too.
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Playing with color is so much fun, particularly if you just wanna see how they combine without the pressure of making something specific. I’ve found books at the library too that focus on how to mix colors, which helps.
Interesting that WC was your first medium! Your little child self knew…. 🙂
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Lol, I think they were just the most easily available to me.
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They say as kids sometimes we know best….people say if you’re not sure what you want to “be”, think about what you dreamed about doing as a kid. I thought that was interesting.
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I’m afraid I could never make up my mind as a kid either. I dreamed of being a lot of different things.
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Again, I don’t know the original, but as a portrait it has a lot of expressiveness.
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Thanks 🙂
I didn’t really like how this one turned out. I’m glad I was able to get some expressiveness in there though even if I’m not entirely sure it’s expressing the right thing.
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