Recently I was extremely happy for my best friend when her boyfriend proposed to her after a long run of five years.
That special moment was as pretty as a painting, then as I replay that scene in my head in the following few days, I had the brilliant idea to start learning watercolor.
I bought the supplies for a month now, but the number of times I painted is less than the fingers on one hand…
Those paint tubes costed a pretty penny, so to avoid waste, here goes a daily record of my clock in and (hopeful) improvement.
For Day 1, I decided to go easy on myself and start from the beginning. It’s a good idea to do watercolor swatches to know what each color looks like on paper.
I had a hard time getting the gradient look. I want to say maybe the brand of pigment was designed to not flow as much?
That is, until I Googled other artist’s swatches… Definitely my problem.
I learned to fix the above situation of too much water: which was to use a dryer brush to pick up the excess water.
This swatch was done on one of the cheaper papers I bought – Paul Rubens 50% cotton paper.
I decided to swatch again and test on 100% cotton paper to see if the colors turn out better; or if better paper will cover the inadequacy of my skills.
In my uncertain conclusion, the pigment seems to spread more on the 50% cotton paper, and less on the 100% cotton paper (indicated by the clear divide in the middle).
Oh – I just realized as I am typing this, that perhaps the cotton absorbs more water, and with less water the pigment cannot spread, leading to that clear divide.
Well, I’ll star this and see if I have an answer in the future after gaining more experience.
Watercolor Journal 
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