I must make the note, I am not a professional artist. I do not hold the gospel truth in the art world. I just offer this section so that you can compare and contrast in the techniques. And maybe, just maybe, you learn from it. I will add more to this section if I get more specific questions that need answering. Preparing to Watercolor This is brute basic here. Basically, I've seen a lot of home-grown artist trying to get a specific look by using watercolors. Thing is, without specific school training (Mike, or anyone with lots of High School art classes) a lot of preperation techniques aren't well known.
First off, get heavy paper. Really heavy. If it's too thin, it'll wrinkle up a great deal. And we are not learning to do Bas Relief here. Take the paper and tape it's edges to your art surface. I keep a board just for this purpose, so I can rotate the picture if I got and odd angle or something.
Lightly water the entire paper surface now. It tightens the paper up so when you actually water color, the paper doesn't raise as much.
If your doing blacks with inks and then adding colors, make sure the ink has time to dry. I've seen a lot of people just coloring it the instant the ink looks dry and smearing it beyond compare. Give suffient time to dry. Since I'm such a slow mover I usually give it 24 hours before I color, but that's me.
If your curious why I don't have a lot of watercolor pieces up, it's because I like using it. And preparing them, but I'm not satified enough with my artist ability to put it up. My Drawing Process Step 1: Get a clean surface. Your gonna be here for a while, might as well as enjoy it. Some artist listen to music, some in complete silence, while I work with the TV on. 
Step 2: Grab you sheet a paper. Also get a sweatpad, never forget this. Or your pencils will smear. Make sure your posture is good, or you'll regret it when you wake up. Now begin you planning by sketching out the characters skeleton, or the shape of item. Or slack and do something else. Step 3: Keep a skeleton look that you like. Then start at a body part that you like, I personally enjoy the eyes. So, all my characters start at the eyes.
Step 4: Then I flesh out other body parts: eyebrows, nose, etc. I finish up a body part at a time. I completely finish the head, then work on the torso before I go to the limps.
Step 5: Clean up excessive lines, if you feel like it. Then if your up for more, you can always ink it. Rinse, repeat. |
