Watercolor 1

What better way to learn about watercolors except from a 2 year old. This is a drawing that my daughter Sarah did.

I did the tree in the lower right hand corner.

In order to learn about watercolors I went straight to a natural expert...a child.

I bought some crayola washable watercolors and some arches 140lb hotpress paper, set it all up and let my daughter have at it. When she was finished I sat down to study it.

I saw the strangest color mixes I have ever seen in my life. I started to see colors that I never thought of mixing before and decided on a tree in the lower right hand corner.

My daughters paints were begining to dry so I grabed a brush and started on my corner tree.

I used white, black, yellow and cyan. I used white and black to lighten or mute a series of greens created from the yellow and cyan and I mixed the paint directly on paper.

The watercolor was thick so it took on an oil painting look against a transparent background.

I cropped it to show the detail in the next photo.

The tree is only 2 1/2" x 2 1/2" but seeing it in the context of what my daughter painted causes her abstractions to take on a landscape quality. If you look at the lower center of her overall drawing it looks like mountains in the distance.

In conclusion all I can really say is that this was an exciting exercise. I get butterflies in my stomach when I look at this.

If you have kids I highly recommend opening yourself up to learning from them. It will produce things you can't even imagine.

Oh well that's my first watercolor.

Greg

Done