About a year and a half ago I stopped oil painting and moved over to gouache. I was a bit overwhelmed by the amount of solvents that I personally utilized to oil paint. Have you ever gone into a polluted area and felt that it would be very bad for your body to stay there, like you could feel an accumulation of bad chemicals in the air? That’s a bit how oil painting made me feel at the end. I was in love with the textures and colors, yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that oil painting was bad for me or my future self, and that my health would be better if I stopped doing it.
To add to this act of self-preservation, in November 2022, I knew I was pregnant and my decision to stop oil painting a few months earlier helped me feel even better about my choice. I read countless blogs and articles on what doctors thought was best to do with painting. It turned out that many of the posts and articles I read agreed that oil painting should be avoided during a pregnancy, and watercolors and acrylics were much better mediums for moms-to-be.
In pregnancy it seems like everything that is near my body needs to be double-checked. Everything must go through a sort of pregnant-lady TSA. Foods, and even cosmetics that I love, or beauty treatments, are highly monitored and are recommended against. This is all well and fine to me, being a person who has already stopped drinking a few years before, giving things up has been easier than I thought it would be. I think most moms-to-be are prepared to give up things like alcohol, but what surprised me was … some sunscreens aren’t okay to use? It all seems very good to err on the side of caution.
The caution of pregnancy around paints formed an opportunity to revisit an art medium that has always, always, always kicked my ass. It confounded me as a teenager. I tried it again in my 20s but couldn’t make anything meaningful. Somehow, working with acrylic ink was easier. Oil painting was way less daunting.
That ass-kicking medium: watercolor.
Aside from reading blog after blog about watercoloring instead of oil painting during pregnancy, what helped me get better with watercolor is something I’ve always loved: reading. For me at least, and maybe for others, watercolor is not the sort of medium that one can just squeeze out of the tube and produce masterpieces. I had to read a book about it and educate myself on techniques, steps, paper types, and more.
The book that got me feeling confident with watercolors was this Jean Haines book, which I picked up on a lark at Barnes and Nobles.
I find Haines’ writing in this book to be very compelling. She describes exactly what she does and she talks about materials and brushes too.
What also helps is that there are thousands of youtube videos out there on watercolor, yet, I think the Jean Haines book is still very valuable, because she is so articulate about her painting. She has a whole series of books, and I picked this animal-based book because the topic seemed approachable to me.
It is hard to find people in life who are highly skilled at something and are also able to communicate very well about their skill. I find this to be true in many sectors, from tech to painting, to topics like mechanics and dentistry. This is why I appreciate Jean Haines’ work and her writing so much.
For my first watercolor in many years, I made this picture of Geddy:
I am pretty happy with this painting of Geddy. I see a lot of opportunities to improve, also. What I thought after making this watercolor was that it would be a good idea to paint something that isn’t predominantly white. Even though Geddy has some blue fur and has pink undertones, he doesn’t make for the most exciting painting subject unless he is against an exciting colorful background. (sorry Geddy!)
So, I moved on to mountains and flowers.
For Memorial Day, I painted these poppies. This was very fun to do, and I used different watercolors than the ones I used for the Geddy watercolor. The paints I used are the Yasutomo Sumi-e Watercolor set - I got them at Guiry’s.
The paper for the poppies above is handmade paper made of recycled T Shirts, which can be found at Two Hands Paperie in Boulder. I really like this paper for watercolor. I was not sure how it would look at all, and I’m not sure of the paper’s weight or if it is considered hot or cold press. Whatever it may be, it has a very pretty effect when painted with these watercolors.
I also found the iridescent watercolors, Coliro watercolors, at Two Hands Paperie. Two Hands Paperie also carries many other handcrafted watercolors. The world of handcrafted watercolors is brand new to me, and it’s very fun to get into. I’m mostly just excited that this is a thing that people do - they make their own paint and sell them online in small batches. It’s much like people who make handcrafted journals or sketchbooks.
No dis on big paint brands, but there is something so fun about looking at and buying small batches. I feel a bit like I am wielding a magic potion, and in a way, that’s exactly what handcrafted watercolors are.
To figure out a bit more about how colors worked on the paper, I painted a swatch.
I painted a few more poppies, this time layering a bit of the Yasutomo paint and adding just a small accent of the Coliro iridescent paints to the flowers. This was really fun.
My next project with the Coliro paints will be iridescent animals, I’m thinking of animals like hummingbirds or even beetles that have shiny carapaces.
Overall, I feel like I am off to a good start with watercolors. The key for me turned out to be not approaching it blindly and just buying paints and brushes, but sticking with a book and reading as much as I could about it, and getting quality paints and paper that I could get excited about. To sum up my approach:
Don’t give up!
Get a book with good writing and inspiring art. Ideally the book will say exactly what kinds of papers and brushes to try, and sometimes, paints
Paint different subjects with different colors.
Making swatches or small test areas of colors is a good idea to understand what the colors look like on certain papers, and how the colors behave or ‘set’ on the paper
Try something a bit new - iridescent and/or handcrafted watercolors are a fun place to start
