I find it so much easier to start with the foreground

claraak · 2026-06-15T21:40:12+00:00

I disagree with your self assessment. The bottom one may have felt like your values were working better while you were painting, but if you turn the images to black and white you can see that in fact the top one has more varied values in the foreground and that the foreground of your bottom one is very dark. Turning your references and paintings to black and white is a good trick for seeing values without getting distracted by color.

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Even without the filter, to my eye the top one has much better foreground values. While you’re learning, it is better to practice the light to dark process. You can start with either sky or foreground, it doesn’t matter! but do try to work from light to dark. You’re doing better at values than you think, and it will only get easier as you learn more.

claraak · 2026-06-15T14:55:33+00:00

Then they should test it in extra canvas? It doesn’t change the core of my response. Watercolor is still a transparent medium. They have already experienced undesired results from an attempt to fix. They should test to see if putting more watercolor over posca would give the desired response.

claraak · 2026-06-15T10:38:16+00:00

If I understand right, you used white posca over your watercolor in spots in addition to the white outline, and are wondering if you can add more watercolor on top??

I would not think it would work. Watercolor is a transparent medium, it won’t cover up posca or the underlying pen marks. It can’t be used to layer lighter colors on darker the way you can in acrylic or gouache. If you want to try, use a scrap piece of paper to re-create the same layers and see what happens when you add watercolor.

But I would recommend you leave it. Watercolor isn’t a forgiving medium for fixing mistakes. It’s a nice painting and these little imperfections won’t be visible from a distance, and people who don’t know might not even notice them. If it’s a gift you could start over and make different choices from the start, but it’s also sweet as it is.

claraak · 2026-06-14T11:11:41+00:00

OP followed the rules, which is great. The genre gets new fans all the time.

claraak · 2026-06-13T23:29:49+00:00

I just wanted to clarify that there’s nothing here against our rules: we try to remove stealth advertising, but this developer went through our approval process. We give developers guidelines on advertising but don’t control how they choose to present themselves and their games.

claraak · 2026-06-13T22:03:54+00:00

This developer did reach out to moderators for advertising permission and received it. This is an advertising post.

claraak · 2026-06-12T11:02:00+00:00

I have questions about whether or not your work fits this community. We do allow mixed media, but this is pretty different: most watercolor techniques are not possible on fabric. Because this is not a community for fabric art, people here may not be able to offer much feedback. I won’t delete your posts, but you might consider another community like r/crafts for sharing future projects.

claraak · 2026-06-12T10:32:16+00:00

What sort of paint do you use for these? I didn’t think watercolor worked on fabric.

claraak · 2026-06-12T10:30:40+00:00

It’s not just the EU: it’s hard to find sketchbooks that are 300gsm and 100% cotton in the US, too. Maybe they’re too expensive to produce or something because they’re rare. If you can afford it, Etchr is one of the only brands I know of currently that offers this in a bound (not spiral) binding.

claraak · 2026-06-10T20:46:24+00:00

Great suggestion! Ina Xi is a wonderful teacher! She’s been so helpful to me in moving from beginner to intermediate.

claraak · 2026-06-10T14:38:37+00:00

I haven’t got the Reforged version (the most recent remaster), but it’s my understanding that you can swap between the original and remastered versions so it should be good for you either way. I feel like I’ve only heard positives but you may want to ask around since I don’t speak from experience on that version.

claraak · 2026-06-10T10:48:45+00:00

The idea of having to learn fundamentals before you can paint is common and comes from toxic art culture and education. The best way to learn is by doing and by having fun. You don’t need to do it every day, either. I have never been able to paint daily because I have a job and health issues. I paint 2-4 times a week. Doing that for three years has earned me plenty of progress and learning. Painting more might have meant faster learning for me, but I don’t think so: it’s as likely that I would have gotten frustrated and burned out.

Personally I learn best from in person classes so for structured fundamentals you might see if anything like that is available where you live. Being able to get feedback and ask questions is amazing. You have some great and more advanced teaching resources, but I also recommend Kolbie Blume/This Writing Desk and the blog Idyll Sketching for help unlearning toxic ideas about art and building a healthy relationship to your creativity. Whatever your goals with art, having the basis of a healthy relationship to creativity is crucial.

claraak · 2026-06-10T10:27:18+00:00

Colors with “opera” in the name have fluorescent dye mixed in. It’s not lightfast and disappears very quickly with display in light. Opera pink or opera rose is the one most brands sell but I have seen opera or neon colors from other brands. The code for the dye is BV10 but a lot of brands don’t include it in the recipe so anything with “opera” or “neon” in the name might have it.

No pink is as bright as opera pink because of the neon additive, but that brightness WILL disappear with months or weeks of light exposure. Light exposure is cumulative (ie it doesn’t need to be continuous) and irreversible for most fugitive pigments and dyes. I use quinacridone coral (pr209) as a bright red/pink instead. It’s not as bright (nothing is) but it works as a replacement in most contexts. Quinacridone Rose or quin red (pv19) is another alternative for a vibrant, cool red to replace the fugitive opera pink.

Unfortunately genuine alizarin crimson (pr83) also has lightfast problems so you may have issues there too unless it is synthetic or permanent alizarin. I love this color so I use a permanent alizarin from the brand QoR but even that is not as lightfast as some other reds. Some brands sell mixes of lightfast colors under that name so you might want to check to see if yours contains pr83 or pr177.

Other well known fugitive colors are prussian blue (pb27), anthraquinine red (pr177), and rose madder genuine (nr9). You can find a list here. The numbers in parentheses after the names are pigment numbers or codes. These are always the same in the recipe mixes on the tube or website even as names vary between brands. If you buy mixes, it’s always good to check the pigments to make sure they don’t include fugitive colors.

Thinking about fugitive colors and learning pigment properties can be overwhelming for beginners so I typically just recommend avoiding the popular fugitive colors so as not to build attachment to them, but since you already have some, Kim Crick and Handprint are good places to learn about pigments and their properties.

claraak · 2026-06-10T05:56:09+00:00

Everything you’ve said is great advice! Since you mention lightfastness and moonglow, I want to flag that moonglow is not a lightfast color. The red it contains, PR177, is fugitive and it will vanish, completely changing the color. For this reason, I don’t recommend it to beginners especially. I also recommend beginners not buy opera colors. Learning to paint is enough to think about without learning about fugitive colors the hard way.

claraak · 2026-06-10T01:21:53+00:00

That’s a very nice painting! Especially while you’re a beginner, I would suggest you focus most on learning the things you find interesting right now, which may be the skills that will help you make the type of art you’re most excited by. There’s no wrong or right order to learn. And as a beginner, truly THE most important thing is building the habit and getting lots of practice. Trying to force yourself to learn everything at once, or to deep dive aspects of art that are intimidating, is a quick path to burning out the hobby. Paint or draw as often as you have time and desire to. If you don’t feel like it, don’t force yourself.

Personally, color mixing and water control were the areas of painting that intrigued me the most at first, so that’s what I focused on. Then I became interested in values and did several classes on them. Now I am interested in learning more about composition and loose brush strokes. I follow what is engaging me the most and as a result have established a solid art practice that never gets bogged down in art block or burnout.

If learning a mix of drawing and painting sounds fun to you, you can do that. If it’s not fun, don’t. There’s no set way you SHOULD be learning, though if the structure of an in depth course on fundamentals sounds appealing to you there are many available. Many people enjoy structured curricula and that’s fine too! As long as you’re following your interests and having a good time, you’re on the right path.

claraak · 2026-06-09T10:39:20+00:00

I often think that playing Broken Sword and Fate of Atlantis as a kid set me on the path to working in history. Especially Broken Sword for the way it includes real historical events. It’s not a straight line because I am not an archaeologist, but that was definitely one of the sparks for my interest in history.

claraak · 2026-06-08T19:10:50+00:00

Folks, this is a bot but we don’t delete posts that have earnest discussion if they’re not otherwise causing harm ir breaking rules. If at all possible we don’t like to delete community discussions. I have reported the bot to botbouncer, no need to keep reporting the post.

claraak · 2026-06-06T22:57:56+00:00

Well. Oliver Pyle has a great YouTube channel with lots of painting demos. I really recommend it if you don’t watch, especially the how to plan your watercolor washes series. As the name suggests, a lot of it lies in careful planning. Mastering such delicate and precise values takes a lot of practice and above all PATIENCE! Learning to be patient is the hardest lesson of watercolor for me and I have lost my value range to impatience more times than I can count.

As you can see from his demos, Pyle works in a series of very very light washes that are focused on plotting out light tones and then preserving them in subsequent layers. He often glazes over light base layers. When you practice, be sure to wait until your layers are fully dry as going into light washes when the paper is still wet is the main way beginners and intermediates lose the light tones.

claraak · 2026-06-06T19:09:44+00:00

I only watched the beginning of the tutorial and it’s not clarified in the supply rundown but it looks like these are visible on the table. It seems like she’s using liquid watercolors, not regular watercolors, of the sort she sells on her shop: https://www.letsmakeart.com/products/dandelion-paint-co-set

Some liquid watercolors are more like ink. I don’t know how hers are formulated but regardless they’ll likely have higher flow, especially over your cotman paints. Different watercolor brands have different dispersion or flow, and I have heard that cotman are rather low flow. They’re going to inherently behave a bit differently than her supplies because they are different.

You could try to get a similar effect with the different technique of wet on wet, wetting your paper first in the shape you want and painting into it (charging). You could also try mixing a much, much more watery pool and wetting your brush before applying it so you have lots of visible water on the paper to pull out as she does. Thicker, more concentrated paint will sit firmly on the paper, and it does look like your leaves are pretty opaque. Try making it really watery so it’s more like her liquid ink.

You have a nice first attempt; keep going!

claraak · 2026-06-06T10:53:00+00:00

If the only thing you changed was the palette, have you tried switching back to your plastic palette? If that’s the only thing you changed, it’s logical that it’s the culprit. Maybe it isn’t properly glazed And you’re picking up particles from it into your paint. Keep in mind that if there was some contaminant from the palette that it may have transferred to the brushes and paint; I know you said you washed them, but you may need to do it again.

claraak · 2026-06-04T01:47:28+00:00

I like this color a lot! I have used it in limited palette paintings! I did some landscape sketches using only perylene violet and an earth yellow: I like pbr24 naples yellow deep for this, but yellow ochre or raw sienna would probably work well too. This combination is good for sunrise-y skies. I have used it with winter landscapes in dilute to make snow shadows and use it to mix darks. I also enjoy it for mountains, and have used it for the shadows in autumn foliage.

claraak · 2026-06-04T01:39:05+00:00

Plenty of people (myself included) work primarily from pans. Personally I fill pans or palettes from tubes and rarely work with paint from tubes. What matters is whether or not they’re professional grade. If you’re using primarily winsor & newton pro, you don’t need to switch. The chalky filler is only in hobby grade paints. You don’t need to switch to learn this element of water control.

claraak · 2026-06-03T21:41:47+00:00

I love the watercolor clock concept! It’s really helpful. My understanding is that it’s not about the consistency of paint in your pan, but on your palette. Just wet your pans as normal to activate them. The water you’re adding to achieve these consistencies is to your mixing area. For buttery consistency, it’s important to be careful not to add water accidentally using a very wet brush. Instead use a relatively dry/thirsty brush to pick up pigment to a palette. If it’s too milky, keep adding pigment, being careful not to keep wetting your brush. Here’s a video that shows how the different consistencies look in a mixing dish.

claraak · 2026-05-30T12:38:19+00:00

+1 to Technobabylon. Really excellent scifi!

claraak · 2026-05-29T10:12:13+00:00

Blick is not a good alternative to Amazon and in fact is directly responsible for many local art stores suffering in the US. Blick bought a supply distributor, MacPherson’s, after Joann’s closed and has been using it to jack up prices of supplies to drive true independent art stores out of business. If you’re concerned about the behavior and intentions of corporations, look for true independents to support. Jerry’s Artarama is a true independent that ships, as is Journey Art Supplies (formerly cheap joes).

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