Quick watercolours

I printed my digital drawings in light grey and used them to do quick watercolour paintings for my design books.

Bowes, K.,(2021). Watercolour paintings.

Watercolour Reflection

I plan to use watercolours to document my design process. My paintings so far were to practice mixing colours and were mostly for fun. I plan to continue painting for fun until I have jewellery pieces or elements that are at a point where I want to paint them. I also haven't tried painting on my handmade paper yet so I want to experiment with that.

Bowes, K., (2021). Watercolour paint on tissue.

Watercolour Summary

Before starting my watercolour journey I had to go back to basics and paint a colour wheel to for colour theory when I paint. After the colour wheel, I started painting my enamels from last year. Since I don't have any other jewellery pieces at the point where I can paint them just yet so I did some fun paintings and plant studies. I also did a free mini watercolour course from Etchr on painting botanicals with watercolour paint and ink pens.

Personalising my process I painted petals radially for my dexterity exercises. I learnt how to make my own paper and I made a wearable pallet. I won't be making my own paint but that is ok because I am in love with the Winston and Newton travel paint kit.

Bowes, K., (2021). Layered petals.

Watercolour practice

 At the beginning of the semester, I learnt how to paint wet on wet with watercolours and applied it to painting the enamels I made last year for the platinum competition.

I used painting the petals of the sunflowers as dexterity exercises.

Bowes, K., (2021) Enamels and flowers

Fun paintings

My collection of paintings I did for fun to practice working in watercolours.

 

Etchr mini workshop

I saw an advert on Instagram that Etchr had a code for a free mini-workshop. I struggled to choose which workshop I wanted to do but eventually settled on doing Renata Tot's workshop as it was about painting plants using watercolours and adding details with an ink pen, the same combination I like to use when drawing for fun. The photos below are the results from painting along with the tutorial.

Bowes, K., (2021). Painting 1

Bowes, K.,(2021). Painting 2

Bowes, K.,(2021). Test page

Wearable pallet

 When I start painting in watercolours I tend to use the side of my hand as a pallet or as a place to blot my brush to remove water which I have realized is a waste of paint as when watercolour paint dries on pallet water just needs to be added to continue using the dried paint but I wash my hands after painting which means the excess paint is washed down the drain. Inspired by Nina Hidalgo's pallet ring to make my own wearable pallet so that I can stop wasting paint.

Bowes, K., (2021). Watercolour flower with wearable pallet 

Bowes, K., (2021). Watercolour butterfly

Paper making

 On Friday I spent the afternoon making paper with Amy Pieterse from Fine Art and I really enjoyed it. We used denim jeans to make the pulp, which is why the paper came out blue which is stunning but not practical to paint on. This was a test as I want to make white cotton paper to use for my watercolour painting.

Here is a link to a compilation video of Amy teaching me the papermaking process: https://youtu.be/kNn7og5fnE8

Bowes,K.,(2021). Paper making 

Colour wheel

I brushed up on my colour theory by painting a colour wheel using watercolour paint. 

I learned how to use the Alfred Hickethier system to label the colours, each colour is assigned a number, "whit 000(absence of colour), black 999(the presence of all colour), yellow(process yellow) 900, red 090 [...], and blue 009,"( Anderson 2006.:20). Using this system made it easier to mix colours as I looked at colour in parts/ratios, for example 903 (yellow green) can be simplified as 3 parts yellow and 1 part blue.

Bowes, K., (2021). Colour Wheel.

Floral Tiles

Bathroom tiles that I keep saying look like an earring/earpiece. I also love how the floral image looks almost like a watercolour painting with a pen used for detailing.

Bowes.K., (2021). Bathroom tiles grid image

Bowes.K., (2021). Single tile

Watercolours

Chris de Beer's Winston and Newton 12 half pan watercolours. The small box is a perfect travel size and I can't wait to get my own set next week.