Pumpkins, Pumpkins, Pumpkins

I'm determined to figure out how to watercolor pumpkins in a variety of styles. Today, I focused on the orange washes, with a hint of yellow wash from the top down. I skipped the dots and went with wonky lines. I love irregularly shaped pumpkins, so I like the version on the right the best.

More Watercolor Pumpkins

I painted three more watercolor pumpkins today. In the 1st pumpkin, I tried using different colors (yellow, green & orange) to create depth. In the 2nd and 3rd pumpkins, I was trying to get different shades of orange and add a little depth with the dots. I still have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm loving the process of learning.

Watercolor Pumpkins

I love pumpkins and with fall on the way, I decided to give watercoloring a few a try. I quickly made these three on my lunch break. I'm not exactly sure about where the proper shading is supposed to go, but I love the curly stems and little dots.

On a side note - I usually take my photos at night and I'm having difficulty take a good quality photo without harsh shadows from the overhead lights on my paintings. I need to figure out a better solution.

Wet into Dry Watercolor Squares

The second project in Heather Smith Jones' Water Paper Paint was working watercolors with the wet into dry technique. (You can check out project 1 in an earlier blog post.) In this project, we created color squares of all shapes, while learning how to mix the paints with each other.

It was amazing to see how many colors you can actually make with just the basic set. I was using Winsor & Newton's Travel Watercolor set. My squares are not perfectly shaped, but I'm slowly getting the feel of the different brushes. While this isn't a large painting, it took me forever to make. I'm finding that watercolor painting is relaxing and easy to get absorbed in. I'm already terrible at keeping track of time and it whizzes by when I'm painting.

Wet into Wet Watercolors

Tonight I started my watercolor explorations with Heather Smith Jones' Water Paper Paint book, which I mentioned in an earlier blog post. The first project is Wet into Wet, where you paint rather wet circles and then paint additional circles with other colors inside - all while the paints are still wet.

I was definitely surprised at how some of the colors reacted with each other and how the paints in the pan can look so different on the paper. I really loved Intense Blue, Viridian Hue and Cadmium Yellow Hue...those three colors, coincidentally, go great together as well!

I originally didn't think the wet on wet process would be a style I was interested in, but it was actually pretty cool to watch the colors spread through one another - they looked like crystals growing! This would be a great technique for wrapping paper or simple cards.