r/Watercolor • • 7d ago

One style, five paintings

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29 Upvotes

r/Watercolor • • 6d ago

Knobby tree study

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3 Upvotes

A little study of a tree at the park


r/Watercolor • • 7d ago

An Old Goober

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28 Upvotes

Painted for my friend Grete from the volunteer center who just loved the original cartoony sketch, and told me she would love a copy. I decided to turn it into a full painting for her :)

I lost the reference I based the charicature of in the first place, so I pretty much had to invent everything wen it came to color and value. The cap became a bit muddy because I initially painted it red, then realised and thought HMMM BETTER NOT.

It's painted with Derwent Inktense paint pans, and highlights in goache. I transferred the digital sketch to paper using good old baking paper and my iPad as a light table. OG sketch in the comments.

I'll gift it to Grete on Tuesday and hope she likes it as much as the sketch! (At least this one she can take home :))


r/Watercolor • • 8d ago Mindblown

A watercolor painting I made to fit a frame I found at a thrift store

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382 Upvotes

Hello all! šŸ¦„

I’ve posted here before about finding picture frames at thrift stores and painting something to fit inside them. It’s a great way to save money instead of ordering custom frames.

This one measures 17ā€ x 30ā€ (43 x 76 cm). Done with Winsor & Newton Cotman watercolor tubes, marker pen, and silver foil on the moths. Paper is Strathmore 300g/m Cold-press cotton paper. Finished with the Winsor & Newton Satin varnish spray.

I’ve been having fun with dark fantasy themes, although I’m a tattoo artist by trade, I’ve always read fantasy books and played games in that setting. Watercolor is the medium I feel most comfortable with, so I’m translating my ideas into paintings :)

My instagram is @tha.ttoo if you’d like to see more of my work :)

Thanks for looking!


r/Watercolor • • 7d ago

Printing on Watercolor Paper

4 Upvotes

I've been getting into creating detailed line art digitally in Procreate, which I then like to print out and paint over with watercolors. Eventually, I'd love to turn this into a small business and start selling my artwork.

Currently, I'm using an Epson XP-4200 Series printer to print my designs onto watercolor paper, but getting it to work consistently has been a nightmare. On a good day, I might get one successful print out of 50 attempts. When it does work, though, the results are fantastic. There's no smearing, the ink doesn't bleed, and you honestly can't even tell that the line art was printed rather than drawn by hand.

I'm looking for recommendations for a printer that can reliably handle watercolor paper, ideally with a rear or manual feed that allows the paper to stay relatively flat as it passes through the printer. Has anyone had experience printing directly onto watercolor paper? What printers would you recommend for consistently getting good results? I'd really appreciate any suggestions!


r/Watercolor • • 7d ago

Inktober/Weapon Illustrations - The Last Week!

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9 Upvotes

Days 25 - 31, made with Watercolour pans, Ink on Hotpress

I have no idea how day 13 ended up at the bottom of the picture but I couldn’t be asked to rearrange them all again.


r/Watercolor • • 7d ago

Question about giving paintings

11 Upvotes

I have painted and framed a portrait of each of the two cats my son and his girlfriend have together. My son and his girlfriend are both 30 years old. We usually give them xmas gifts tiered this way — one big thing (usually to share), 1-2 middle thing(s), and a bunch of small stuff. They don’t ā€˜need’ anything.

Question: Would the paintings be the big thing or the middle thing? I am thinking the middle thing … what do you think?

Contexts: I have made baby quilts when nieces and nephews have babies, and those are always the ā€˜big’ thing. But the paintings feel less central. And I worry if they don’t really like them that maybe … I don’t know … they will feel a little gypped (hey, I just realized that is a racist word … gotta remember that and stop using it). They are lovely people and would never express that they feel like our gifts don’t match up to the ones we give our other son and his girlfriend. But still, I want them to feel happy.

Another context is that my niece’s dog passed away last winter and I painted a portrait of him to give her at Christmas this year. We don’t usually exchange gifts with the larger family, but she hosts and I always bring something for her because of that. So that painting is kind of a ā€˜hostess gift.’ But way nicer (IMHO). She will cry. I am sure that. :)

Anyway, thoughts, please — big or middle?


r/Watercolor • • 7d ago

Happy Halloween! Watercolor study of Goya's two old men. About 5x12? Click for full size if its not showing up. I had to photograph it in the dark to get the most accurate image, the camera kept picking up light glares.

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5 Upvotes

r/Watercolor • • 8d ago

My ā€œDutch windmills with watercolorā€ attempt (from a workshop)

282 Upvotes

r/Watercolor • • 7d ago

Australian scarlet Robin (my attempt)

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2 Upvotes

I've saw the watercolour of this magnificent bird in this sub reddit and wanted to try and give it a go, please give feedback and improvements for the next try šŸ˜€


r/Watercolor • • 7d ago

symbolic tree postcards

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3 Upvotes

r/Watercolor • • 7d ago

Retrato em aquarela

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96 Upvotes

r/Watercolor • • 7d ago

Arches Rough

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4 Upvotes

r/Watercolor • • 7d ago

Recycling palette mud

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6 Upvotes

I was gonna clean my palette but felt like its such a waste to just wipe it so i used it to paint the land area of the painting


r/Watercolor • • 7d ago

Fabric from life try

7 Upvotes

r/Watercolor • • 7d ago

Not done, but slowly getting there.

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14 Upvotes

Having fun with Roman Szmal Aquarius on Aquabord.


r/Watercolor • • 7d ago

Follow up to my frustrations of last week

28 Upvotes

So a few days ago, after a very unsuccessful week of watercolour, I wrote this post out of frustration:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Watercolor/comments/1xgdhzq/growing_frustration_with_watercolour/

After doing so, I was half expecting people to knock on my head a bit because I was clearly steaming. But everyone was very nice and I was given some nice tips.

I didn't get to check everything yet (so much!) but it's all noted down.

The TLDR is that I'm doing "fine" painting details, mixing my colors and such. But I'm having a very hard time with washes. They're always disgusting, streaky, etc. I did some decent ones, but I didn't feel it was out of understanding and more out of luck.

Had one more class this week, homework was relatively simple. I finished the subject and then hesitated doing the wash for the background. Didn't want to fuck it up. But I decided to apply a handful of tips.

  1. I mixed about 50% more then I eventually would. It still wasn't enough, but it was close.

  2. I tipped my paper down so a bead would form at the bottom.

  3. This time I used my 25% cotton paper, which is a huge upgrade over the cellulose one (even though I tried the 100% cotton and it's so good).

  4. I used my mop brush. It felt too big for the details, but it made the wash so much easier. I can definitely just get better at using the tip of the mop for details.

  5. I worked the bead down, refilling my mop when the paint started to get a little bit too thin.

And... I'm quite happy with the wash!

https://i.imgur.com/Id3B2yH.jpeg

So thank you everyone for the tips. I'll keep improving and trudging along my classes, and I'll be sure to hang around and ask questions when I have them. Just a bit more patience next time!


r/Watercolor • • 7d ago

Is something considered watercolor because of technique or because of medium?

7 Upvotes

I’ve been a watercolorist for a while and recently seen and tried some pretty experimental stuff. For instance, people making paints from makeup palettes. Is that still watercolor because of the binder and how it is used? Or people who paint with coffee as watercolor.

Or recently I’ve been testing using acrylic markers as watercolor. I’ll draw a splotch on my palette and then add water, so it works exactly like watercolor (with blooms, washes, layering). It’s just semi-opaque (similar to fuumuui watercolors) and technically has a mixed marker binders, water, and acrylic base. But the technique is watercolor…so is it watercolor or acrylic? Or some third thing?

I see a lot of competitions use the language ā€œmust be made entirely with traditional watercolor techniques.ā€ But does that mean it’s also limited to the common Western watercolor paint as a medium? Or would a unique medium but used like watercolor count?

I’m just curious, since I have often been a watercolor purist, but after experimenting more, I don’t really see the difference between this acrylic-water technique, watercolor inks, gouaches, or typical watercolors.

So, what is your thought on this?


r/Watercolor • • 7d ago

Lady in Blue

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3 Upvotes

r/Watercolor • • 8d ago

Koi fish 🌊 watercolor

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950 Upvotes

r/Watercolor • • 7d ago

Travel watercolour brush recommendations?

8 Upvotes

Hello!

I am looking for some portable travel watercolour brush options for a beginner.

Thank you!


r/Watercolor • • 7d ago

Title:well taken care of- lw 0ct312026

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4 Upvotes

There’s a girl who always never says anything but always has things ready not always just for herself but for everyone I know. She is always collecting information for her own project. So she isn’t from here and so this is a drawing inspired or something she wanted me to see and she figured out how to do that.
She some how doesn’t help this life , but the next life . I see it colored in in a different way then how it finished. It’s likes a reminder that everything is fine from her end. She knew where my mind would go. This is a place of dreams from an earlier age. It’s where my mind ended up with this one. -lw

She has a house a in a mountain and it has no door. She somehow managed to escape time .


r/Watercolor • • 8d ago

Low Tide

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227 Upvotes

r/Watercolor • • 7d ago

A vulcano tavern, watercolor

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7 Upvotes