This year, my new toy is a Schmincke watercolor box set (the cake type - which I have been thinking of getting for sometime - not the tube type).
It costs RM 180 (12 colors, graded as "finest artist's watercolor"), which is quite expensive; but if you think about it, it would actually be a saving in the long run, because with tubes, you are more likely to squeeze out more paint than you would actually need, whereas with watercolor cakes, you only lift off as much as you need with your brush. Although this is quite a bother if you are making a large pool of paint for background painting, but I still have my tubes for that purpose, so, for painting small areas, this is more effective in preventing wastage.
This "new toy" actually sat on my desk for quite a while before I actually started using it. I decided to use it - for the first time - to paint another picture as this year's anniversary gift to my wife (although it was already six days past our anniversary - I was too busy with work the week before to sit down for a few hours to paint a picture).
I decided to do her portrait this time. The inspiration came from a sketch I did of her during an outdoor sketching trip we took with a friend who was visiting us in Penang at that time. My friend (one of my "artsy" friends) and I were the ones doing the sketching, while she (not interested in sketching or painting) was just accompanying us. She was reading a book (I forgot what book; perhaps "Le Petit Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry) when we were sketching some plants growing along a small creek. I turned to see her looking very serene as she immerse herself in her reading, and I was touched by what I saw, so I quickly made a sketch of her.
Her hair has grown long since, so I modified her look as below, and I added a verse from Songs of Solomon, chapter 6, verse 9: "My dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her. The daughters saw her, and blessed her; yea, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her." (note: my wife is the only daughter of her parents, the only "flower" among the other FIVE "thorns", that is, sons.)
I was quite happy with the sketch, but alas, I spoiled it when I was painting the background. For one thing, I should have used the Series D cadmium yellow (the best grade among those of the same brand, tube-type) instead of the Series B yellow, and for another, I should not have added in the green, which failed to blend in with the yellow as I intended (perhaps the paper was not wet enough). I had to discard this (and I used it later to try out color mixtures).
My second attempt was not as good in terms of the sketching, and now in retrospect I am glad that I spoiled that one too. What happened was that while trying to wet the face for a wet-on-wet effect, I had accidentally used the brush that I had used earlier in the first attempt for the green in the background (and I had failed to wash it thoroughly after that). It gave the face an eerie green undertone, and I had to discard this second attempt as well (I also used it later to test my color mixtures, as you can clearly see below).
Having learned painful lessons from the previous two attempts, the third attempt went without much glitch. Praise the LORD.
Of the entire picture, only the face was done with wet-on-wet technique. The rest was wet-on-dry. In this updated version of "the serene reader", I depicted her as reading the Bible.
The picture below shows all the tools used in producing this painting:
- Watercolor block (can't remember the grade, but definitely more than 135 g/m2)
- a 2B pencil and a small chunk of eraser (how stingy I'm getting)
- Rowney's Series D Cadmium Yellow (for the background)
- Schmincke watercolor cakes (I used "cadmium red light", "permanent carmine", "yellow ochre", and "ivory black" - plus surplus yellow from the background - in various mixtures to produce the skin tones, the lip color (which is later darkened and used on the blouse, and then further darkened and used to write the bigger text and my signature), the hair color (also used on the cover of the Bible and for writing the smaller text and the date)
- two nylon brushes of different sizes (too lazy to get up now to go find out the actual sizes; let's just call them "small" and "medium") for the smaller areas and for writing
- one broad nylon brush for the background and the hair and the blouse and the Bible cover
- masking liquid (applied with a fine brush) for the words "圣经" (Holy Bible) on the cover and for the white edge of the Bible pages
Strictly speaking, you don't need many things for painting a picture.
Oh, I almost forgot: I also used two containers (the bottom halves of two 1.5L mineral water bottles) of filtered tap water. These I forgot to include in the picture below.
Having claimed how simple painting can be, I must confess that I have not painted anything between this and the last painting I painted as last year's anniversary gift to my wife...
Sometimes, busyness can be such a good excuse even for procrastinating doing things that you love to do. :-)
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