Walk Pretty

The other day I bought some sets of Hydrus liquid watercolours by Dr Ph, Martins. I read about them in one of the books by modern watercolour artist Danielle Donaldson. They looked so tempting! So I put them to a test and created a painting combining other watercolour methods.

After wetting the paper and taping it down on the edges to stretch it (prevents paper from buckling up), I let it dry before outlining my drawing in pencil. I wanted again to create another kawaii painting involving girl walking a dog. This time she’s wearing a flower in her hair, and the dog is all dressed up! How quaint. And although it was raining all day today, the sun is shining in the picture!

I painted the background first by brushing a wash of light green on the bottom half and then a wash of cobalt blue and combining the colours in the middle. Here I used tubes of Royal Talens watercolour diluted with lots of water. I recommend using a huge wide angled brush which enables you to skim over the edges and even corners of the subjects. The paper looks a bit wrinkly in the photo below but that’s because it’s soaking wet. Once dry, it’s fine.

The face and the hair were painted in using watercolour pans by Sakura Koi Watercolor. And the dress and the dog as well, However, I wanted to make use of these new watercolour liquids and hence painted the sun in Havana Yellow Light whilst the rays were from the watercolour pan, The blue bits like the heart on the dress and dog’s outfit were in Turquoise Blue. It was amazing how a little of this new liquid watercolour goes a long way. A tiny drop is all you need, and wow the colour spreads really well and penetrates effectively. And saturation is quite high.

I continued using this liquid watercolour on the hair as well. Used two brown shades, Raw Umber and Venetian Brown to give it some dimension. For the eyes, I decided to use some watercolour felt pens! I used a set called Clean Color Real Brush by Kuratake from Japan. They’re wonderful! I also used these pens to add some shadows which could then be blended in with a small wet brush. About brushes, I love the ones by Curtis Ward specifically designed for watercolour and gouache. I added some small details using gel pens such as white for the shines in eyes and black for the dog’s eye.

Looks summery I know even though autumn is quickly approaching with the unstable weather conditions. Could I be finding it difficult to let go? And am really more a cat person than a dog person! Perhaps I keep seeing people walking their dogs when I’m out and about and am holding on to hoping the pleasant 20 degrees or so temperatures could hold as long as possible. I nevertheless found it quite relaxing painting this piece and trying out different methods of watercolour: tubes, pan, bottled and pen. And though not used this time, you also have water soluble pencils, pastels and crayons!