Art Every Day Month - November 22

Translating Value Studies from Graphite to Watercolor








Several days ago on this blog, I posted a 16-block arrangement of value studies based on a series of little graphite doodles.

I wasn't thrilled with how the graphite sketches translated into the watercolor, and I promised to come back to the experiment and repeat it, using what I had learned the first time around.


Today I am more pleased with my work.

This time I painted in a rich monochrome gray that I mixed from alizarin crimson and prussian blue.
I achieved a much larger tonal range, with the darkest tones of gray being touches of thick gooey paint, and the lightest tones being diluted with water and brushed on with even more water.
I developed a smoother application of washes, which more closely resemble the graphite pencil shading of the drawings.

I am not ready to declare this experiment complete, however. There is still a lot for me to discover about brushwork and how to make it correspond with the pencil strokes in my sketches. And I still have a lot to learn about controlling the flow of the watercolor paint, too. But for now, I am happy with what I did today.