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January 25, 2012

100 Watercolors #24 - No Time

Some of you might recognize this week's illustration.  It is a repainting of a self-portrait I drew for the 2008 Blog Archive page on my personal website.  Each year I try to come up with one image that sums up the big events going on in my life.  At that time I had just begun freelancing, which was very stressful!  So it seemed like a good image for this theme.  Appropriately, I got to paint this version of the image during another extremely busy time in my life.  It's always therapeutic to draw how you feel, right? 


Previously I was mixing my colors on a piece of scrap paper and then applying them to the painting.  I'm not sure why that was my method...  Usually I would run out of the color, and have to remix it, which was always a bit different.  Lately I have been mixing my colors in a plastic palette, which is working much better.  I can mix up a bunch of a color, so I make sure I have enough to cover an area.  Also, when I'm mixing another similar color, I can do it right on top of an old one, so I collect some of the previous color, which helps unify the color scheme (hopefully) and leads to more unique color choices.  It's a small (probably obvious) step, but I feel like it's making a big difference in these paintings.  I've got another 76 of these to go, so hopefully I can discover some more good tips along the way!

Next week: Trouble Lurking!

2 comments:

Sarah said...

Nicely done! Your watercolor paintings are excellent :)

Alec Longstreth said...

Thanks Sarah!