I’ve wanted to work more with watercolours, but I wasn’t sure where to start. But then, a friend handed me some Japanese watercolour pens. Now, I’m in love.
Working with new mediums can be daunting. I have little formal art training so everything can feels like an uphill struggle. For example, I’ve tried painting with watercolours in the past, and I just couldn’t make proper sense of using them. But, I like how they look, and I have tried other techniques like using acrylic paints as washes. Still, I put watercolours aside until I had some sort of revelation.
Recently, an artist colleague of mine offered me a set of Akashiya Sai Watercolor Brush Pens she had been gifted, but never used. This seemed like a good opportunity to bridge colouring with markers to watercolours. Sort of like riding with training wheels, I guess. Of course, the instructions are in Japanese, so I’m due for a little research and playing to be able to make the most of them.
This is how today’s trials turned out.
The results are really pleasing. They paint smoothly and the colours are quite vibrant. Perhaps they don’t offer as much flexibility as a proper watercolours, but if you want to get to painting without much mess or set-up these do the trick.
I think I’ll call this drawing/painting: “Masked figures portray Speech confronts the Tied Tongue.” I have a bunch of similar drawings reading for a little colour, so I’ll post those when they’re ready.