A handful of watercolor experiments (be gentle ...)
Hey fellow Guildmates !
Recently, I've tried my hand at watercolors. My goal is to be able to produce a satisfying traditional piece and to take some time off the screen as I feel I burned my eyes this year
As you'll see, I achieved mixed results but I feel I'm making progress so, it's all good. I am not pleased with the maps, to say the least, but it is no reason not to post them and share a bit. By posting those, I'm also looking for advice from anyone that know a bit about watercolor. Cartography is full of details and this media might not be the best for it but I'm stubborn (and I love the washed colors).
Let's go with a chronological order (all maps are 150 dpi) :
- Aqua 1 : It's the first I colored this way. I feel I got my parchment color right (which is not the case for the others). I used masking fluid to avoid going over my parchment limits but this product is nasty and peels bad on cheap paper and takes out the pencil. It's the only map where I did the sea parchment darker than the land parchment (something I do on my digital maps) and I should have done it on the others as it makes for a great strong blue for the sea.
Aqua 1 post.jpg
- Aqua 2 a.k.a. L'archipel d'Automne : This is an A3 piece I started on a cheap mixed media pad I bought for my 3 yo. I wanted to present it for the autumn challenge but got busy with commission work. It was fun playing with the art nouveau letters (google Hector Guimard, I'm sure you'll love it) and, as it's not my strong suit, I kept it simple. I really dislike the clear yellow of the parchment but the paper had already buckled a lot so, I decided to let it be. My brush work was also really really sloppy (especially the blue). A difficulty I often encounter is to estimate correctly the amount of paint I'll need. Half way through the process, I'm always short and have to redo some colors, losing the consistency ... The tarnishing on the tears of the parchment and the cast shadow was applied using copics markers. Also the line work was done with a single 0.1 fineliner (Windsor&Newton that the local shop had and I wanted to test. Nice feel but they dry too quickly).
Automne post1.jpg
- Aqua 3 : This one was all done with a 0.3 2B pencil. Meticulously ! For once I took my time. I used a lot of masking fluid and let the map rest for way too long before coloring it (I was intimidated by the watercolors). The masking fluid took away the pencil on many parts and too many water washed a lot too. Here again, the brushwork was sloppy and I should have used a simple nib for the border details. It was destined to be framed, it won't be framedWith this one, I like the parchment tarnishing and the colors. I feel the map could have benefited of some whit highlights on the mountains and maybe a bit of terrain coloring but I call it done anyways.
Aqua post.jpg
- Aqua 4 : I colored it earlier but was unsatisfied by it's clear appearance. Tonight I gave it a go and pushed it a bit. Forests were a mistake but I like the (involuntary) strange patterns on the sea (note : all the cool coloring stuff are happy accidents, I REALLY don't know what I'm doing here, I need to take some classes on the topic). Kept it simple for the rest.
Aqua 2 post.jpg
I'll do some more but not right away. These four maps taught me a lot as I had never used watercolor before but I still need to learn a lot and I do not like "spoiling" a linework I deem worthy.
As I told above, any critic and advice is welcome.
Cheers !
PS : 2 and 3 have weird colors. I scanned them on a big sophisticated Xerox at work but it's not as good at scanning colors as it is at printing them.
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). Needless to say, it did not look even as remotely good as yours do here. This might just encourage me to give it a second shot!
Originally Posted by Wingshaw
