RAINBOW FLOWER

Acrylic vs. Watercolour Paint III…

I was taking pictures of my garden with my awesome little camera that puts magical filters on the photo, and one picture came out with a rainbow filter. I decided this picture would be great for doing another watercolour vs. acrylic paint post.

So I had to draw out the flower twice because when I had a chance to buy carbon paper I didn’t take it 😦 (sad sound here).

I inked in the watercolour versions details first with a black marker, then went over it with my paints trying to make a beautiful watery rainbow gradient.

This was actually a really fast way to paint, but not easy to control. I don’t paint with watercolours often because I find them frustrating as I don’t really know what I’m doing haha.

In the past I used watercolours more, but I would make the pigment very thick and actually use them like acrylics. Keeping he paint watery is new to me and I found I lost all control when painting this picture. I should do some research in the future before trying again.

Overall I really like how it turned out.

The acrylic version which I thought I would enjoy painting turned into a mess and I hate it.

My first mistake was using only an Acrylic Extender Medium and no water. Second mistake was that I didn’t read the back of the extender and instead of using a 1:4 ratio I used a 1:1 ratio. This made my paint very sticky and hard to work with. I didn’t clue into the ratio as being the problem until the end. I thought the problem was me haha.

The main thing I don’t like about this painting is that the veining is too strong. I lost all the delicate details because I thought I could just paint them back in on top. Well, my paint stokes were too thick. I maybe might have been able to get thinner stokes if I had been using water to thin and smooth the texture.

Oh well, it is what it is.

What do you think? Which do you like better?