Thirty days of painting: Day 7

Day 7: Masking liquid

The preparation for this was done over a couple of days. I found the inspiration whilst going through watercolour technique boards and found a very cute blog, which many Pinterest searchers may have found already, as it's on the first page of Google.

What was used:

Watercolour paper

A sketch of a portrait

Watercolour paint

Number 18 synthetic round brush (cos, you know, they're all different)

A light box

Masking tape

Board

Step one: Have a portrait sketch

Ta-da!

Step 2: Mask the paper

Placing the sketched image under the watercolour paper. Using an old brush, paint over all the light areas of the face, as well as the hair highlights, with the masking fluid.

A watercolour teacher informed me that putting blobs of paint over the image will create an interesting effect. I wanted to see how it'd turn out.

Leave to dry for a few hours or over night.

The lighting isn't spectacular on this one.

Step 3: Paint over the image with watercolour

 As you can see, the blob-effect didn't work out the way I had planned. This is probably be because, for the blobs, I used student watercolour instead of artists watercolour. Once dry, the student watercolour does not un-dry. However, artist's watercolour is soluble no matter how long you leave it.

You can see much more of how the figure will look. Again, not a good image due to energy-saving kitchen lighting.

Step 4: Remove the masking fluid

 ITS COMING ALIVE!

 SHE LIVES!

I'm not nearly happy about the left eye as I am with the right. The more masking fluid I used, the globbier the brush became as the latex dried over the bristles. By the time I was onto the left brush, all that came off my brush was large chunks, and I didn't have much control at all. I may have to look into some kind of foam brush.

This is a very good example of how different artist's quality paint verses student quality paint looks. I am quite surprised at how different it looks, even the blobs on the page look so much duller than it's surroundings.

I know what you may be thinking - it's a different blue, of course it'd end up looking duller!

So, I've gotten some image of other things I have painted using "terquoise" paint so you can compare the difference for yourself. Used  by the same scanner and everything.