#how2art

[zerooriginalityitsalljustcrabs]

Guess which big boy just spelled his own name!! I'm so proud of him.

(error obv belongs to loverofpiggies on tumblr :>)

[amythrilheart-blog]

A gift for two dear friends in my FC <3

[kythrie]

process- I do not do not often do layering. Occassionally for animals I will do one base layer and one “fine hair” layer over top just to tie in the details.

[imtrublu]

I’m absolute trash and I love drawing my in game character with my S/O.

[mintteasheep]

Valkyrie. #illustration #drawing #digitalart #valkyrie #artistoninstagram #art #how2art

[plainiack]

Angsty

[missizayoi]

Omfg- How2art

[synzi]

Practicing Digital art for the first time! #art #practice #digital #how2art

[astraeaaaa]

me rn

[summer-hades]

Just some doodles from twitter.. ya

[aristatia]

Inktober 10: [I wanted to draw a mermaid. Halfway through I realized it was a very, very bad idea.]

[alittlerespect]

flying girlfriends

;u;

[yeetorandi]

Painting I made inspired by the music video done by Muse - Bliss. Ive been obsessed with outerspace lately its crey. *British accent* This piece here shows 3 different planets along with stars and commets with a deep space background. *End Accent* ye so I made this bye #art#painting#space#outerspace#summer#kindarusty#reallyrusty#help#how2art#doingitwrong

[aobabut-t]

...Okay. I have a MILD idea of what I want to draw.

[forwardbiaspony]

On the Matter of 'That Watercolor Feeling'

In my last post I mentioned my work not having that "Watercolor feeling". Now obviously my work is watercolor from a technical standpoint; I have the horribly warped sketchbook pages to prove it. But for me, painting with watercolors isn't the point of the endeavor. I can paint better in acrylic any day of the week and digitally I can blow both of those mediums away. There are several reasons for me to paint in watercolors, easy cleanup, high availability, but there are two related things that are my core interest: the uncontrolled whimsy of the flow of the paint, and achieving a style that doesn't wrangle the flow of the paint into forms but allows the paint to control the forms. This actually relates back to some life lessons I'm trying to teach myself, but that's a story for a different day. Today we're going to talk about what I mean by my paintings not having "That Watercolor Feeling".

Take a look at this beautiful work.  Of it's own it's entirely non-representational; it's just a rainbow of color on a canvas with a few line elements added. But it's probably the simplest example of letting the whimsy of the paint do it's thing and it's a beautiful thing.

Now with that said, I don't want to do abstract art; splashing paint on a canvas is cool, and I learn a lot from it (watch for a post coming soon on the matter of my cleanup paper towels as they turn out to be pretty neat,) but it's not really my thing. I want to do representational work.

Work like this painting of a young girl. There are areas where I wonder if the issue is that the paint water got spilled on the canvas and the artist just kinda dumped pigment into it until it looked cool, and there are areas where it's very obvious that a careful attention to detail and technique drove the work. This is what I want to be able to do. The blob of paint? It doesn't look even remotely out of place. It quickly goes right outside the lines and just becomes an element of it's own in the painting. There are even large areas of the painting that have no paint at all, or maybe just a slight texture wash, but they don't feel empty. That feel is what I would like to achieve. I'm aware that this isn't possible by following the rules; I can't stay in the lines and make something like this. But that very fact is what drives me to try. Hopefully this makes some degree of sense. This little discourse isn't itself art, per se, but I figured that, like the first/last page of the sketchbook, this might give some manner of insight into how I think about my art, and what motivates me. Anyway, have a tiny happy pony because you deserve it!

[miraclemeatchan]

Sand Art by Ako Tsubaki