Watercolor Practice Project
In this project, using pictures found on the internet, we combined two objects, then watercolored them. I chose these two pictures: (copyright of these pictures belongs to their original owners)
The idea was to put the Molotov cocktail in the man's hand (with some other background) into the iris of the eye. To accomplish this, I traced the parts of the images I wanted onto tracing paper. Then, I shaded the back of the tracing paper with pencil, and, placing the tracing paper on a piece of watercolor paper, traced the graphite onto the watercolor paper (with a ballpoint pen). This is the image on the tracing paper after I used the pen to transfer it.
Finally, I watercolored it. Here is my first draft:
After the first draft, we got some critique, and started work on our second drafts. Here is some of the critique I got for my first draft.
Here is my second draft, that takes this critique into consideration.
- Make picture horizontal on page, and much bigger.
- Blend shadow better (the one above the eyelid).
- Work on eyelashes (make more, and make their length reasonable to where they are.
- Make the bottle the centerpiece.
- Add eye shine (like there would be in a real eye).
- Add color to the white part of eye (a little red, blue, gray, etc.).
- Work on the fire (make it more realistic).
Here is my second draft, that takes this critique into consideration.
The critique that I got for this piece was to:
Here is the final draft:
- Blend the eye into the background better.
- Work on making the fire more realistic.
- Make the eyelids's shadows and color.
Here is the final draft:
And here are the three images next to each other, in order from left to right, for comparison.
Project reflection:
Doing this project has really helped with my skill in watercoloring. I already knew how to watercolor, and sometimes do it in my free time, but have never really "learned" how to do it except for teaching myself. I mainly learned how to use brushes properly while watercoloring, and certain techniques to make things easier for me. For instance, how to transfer an image onto watercolor paper (the process is described above), and other ways to blend colors with watercolor (not on the paper, like I usually do). It was also really interesting to read and talk about the article about copyright.
Doing this project has really helped with my skill in watercoloring. I already knew how to watercolor, and sometimes do it in my free time, but have never really "learned" how to do it except for teaching myself. I mainly learned how to use brushes properly while watercoloring, and certain techniques to make things easier for me. For instance, how to transfer an image onto watercolor paper (the process is described above), and other ways to blend colors with watercolor (not on the paper, like I usually do). It was also really interesting to read and talk about the article about copyright.