This morning I decided to try using my water-brushes to watercolour (learning to watercolour is something I’ve had on my “Someday” list for a while). As with inking in lines, I’ve always liked the look of watercolour but never found my own way into it. Until today.
The guy at the indie book fair had a bunch of water-brushes pre-loaded with colour, so I went a-Googling this morning to learn about that, prepared to buy a bunch more brushes to load with a basic range of hues, but instead I saw lots of examples of people using one brush and a tray of paints.
My God, what fun! The brush-pen gave me the control I’d always missed in a brush, plus it just cleans itself if you stroke it on a piece of paper, which I did until I saw a box set that contained a sponge. I had a sponge, tried it, and whaddya know? It works even faster.
For years I’ve used Tria Letraset markers, loving the vivid colours they produce, which was such a leap from the crap markers I’d used as a kid. I first learned of them through a man who did rough, cartoony product mock-ups for a pharmaceutical advertising agency I worked for in Canada. (I had a dream yesterday morning about working again under the genius dragon-lady wife of the entrepreneurial couple who owned the firm — boy, could they have used Strategic Coach!) I bought the markers then, back in the mid-Nineties, and have used them steadily since without them drying up yet.
This watercolour brushing, though, let me create highlights and shadows and washes in a way I could never achieve with the markers — and wanted to. It’s so much fun, I could do this all day.
Er, except I have case studies to write.
I’m excited about this because it’s pure fun to do, but it also opens up the possibility of doing an artist’s book journal-type thingy — an idea that’s intrigued me for some time, especially after I read the beautiful, life-affirming, and inviting How to Make a Journal of Your Life, by Dan Price.
So, would you like my watercolour coloured pencils? I hate to have things lying around that I’m not using which somebody else could benefit from. If you want to send me a quid or two for shipping that’d be nice (if you live particularly far away), but if you can’t afford that, just make something with them and show me!
