The most valuable piece of advice I would give to beginner watercolorists is – Don’t give up, make mistakes.
I’m not sure that today’s image is anatomically correct, it is copied from a sketch and it has a lot of errors.
But you can learn a lot from mistakes. The bled of beach colour over the blue mat is due to a property of yellow paint, it will always push other colours away. And you can use this to help correct mistakes, or in this case make mistakes. I wanted the sand to seem like it had brushed up over the mat.
The head of the person is not quite right. It gives the impression that there may be 2 people in the image. Is this a mistake or is this to introduce interest to the viewer? Always give the viewer of your paintings something to think about.
The original sketch featured a beach tent in the background. This would have confused the painting and added too much detail, distracting from the main subject. I’ve developed the rucksack from the sketch to give some balance to the image.
So next time you make a mistake in a painting – stop and think. Is this a mistake or adding interest?
Day 13 Done.
