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This artwork is now available as a free Coloring Page !

More experimenting with watercolors!

I used the same Crafts 4 All set of 24 that I did on my Watercolor Kitty . And honestly, I'm still very impressed with how they handle for inexpensive watercolors.

But this piece was slightly more about trying watercolors in general on canvas. Because for some reason the internet is CONVINCED that if you want to use watercolor on canvas that you MUST prime it first with gesso and then again with an absorbent/watercolor ground. The only explanation is that the canvas won't be absorbent enough on its own and the paint will lift off easier.

That's fine and good and all, but the weird thing to me was that it seemed like no one had thrown caution to the wind and tried it anyway. Or at least if they had, they'd been severely drowned out by all of the insistence on priming.

This all came about because I've had a pack of 8"x10" canvases sitting on one of my art shelves, waiting for a purpose for a few months because I was previously not much into painting, but now that I'm starting to delve into painting with watercolor, I was wondering if that could be a use for the canvases.

The other thing is that, even though I haven't worked with canvas very much, but the few times I have I didn't bother to prime it with gesso (as is typically recommended) and had no issues. (And I wasn't using expensive, pre-primed canvases either. I use typically the cheapest I can get.) Additionally, I've used my Dr. Ph. Martin India Inks and ink in general on canvas with no problem, and from my experience with ink and watercolors, they behave pretty similarly. The main difference is just that ink tends to dry more permanently and usually comes in much thinner/more liquid forms.

Naturally, I wasn't satisfied with just taking the internet's word for it that I absolutely HAD to prime the canvas to use watercolor on it. So next time I found myself at DollarTree, I picked up a little pack of three baby 4"x6" canvas boards to experiment with. (Before going straight to one of the bigger canvases and potentially messing it up because I didn't know what I was doing.)

Then the other night while I was feeling artsy, I came across some pictures of mushrooms on Pinterest and got bitten very hard by the art bug, so I ended up with a small, cute sketch of a little mushroom trio.

It was a bit small for transferring onto my normal papers for coloring with markers or watercolor, and I didn't feel like using colored pencils. Originally, I had scanned it in just so I could make it bigger to use on my regular 5"x7" comfort realm for paper, but even after I had optimized it that way, it ended up clicking in my head that the original might be a good size to use on one of my tiny canvas boards.

So I grabbed some thin graph paper and my lightbox, traced the sketch, and then tried a technique I'd heard about where you shade the back of the drawing with graphite or charcoal (I went with graphite just in case I needed to fix it later and so if I wanted to I could erase it more easily), then you place in with the graphite side down on the canvas and trace the sketch with a fairly heavy hand. I was a little skeptical at how well it would work, but it actually did! The only real issue is that the texture of the canvas can tweak the lines a little, but it wasn't enough to deter me from ever trying this again.

Then I followed my usual routine of going over the lines in pen; opting for my black Sakura gelly roll so I wouldn't murder a felt tip with the canvas texture but the lines would hopefully not react to the water. Fortunately, you can't really tell in the finished piece, but I did accidentally smudge some of the ink before it had fully dried because it did take a little longer to dry on the canvas. I was able to quickly grab a Tombow Dual Brush blender marker and mostly clean up the mess though.

After letting the line art sit and dry for a little while, I came back to it armed with some small brushes, a glass of water, my watercolor palette, and curiosity to boot.

As I already started, these cheapo watercolors continued to surprise me with how well they work. They originally came in tubes, but I purchased a separate palette and squeezed a bit of the paint into half-pans and by this point, they had finally completely dried out. (Last time I used them it had been so humid around here that a few of them were still slightly malleable, but I was impatient) And they reactivated really beautifully; only the white felt like it needed more water, but that had more to do with the fact that I was trying to load it up to mix with other colors, and I needed more of it just because white is easily overpowered. (I have been considering purchasing a separate, bigger, maybe slightly more expensive tube of just white watercolor because of this since I know I'm probably going to go through it the quickest). But even the greens reactivated nicely; though my research had led me to believe that if I had trouble with any of them reactivating that it would be them.

To be fair, yes, the paint did lift a little easier than it would if you were using it on paper. However, this didn't really bother me because I actually found it quite useful for helping correct mistakes and occasionally to blend. Just as well, I also noticed the paint seemed to stay wet just a little bit longer and it flowed together a little more easily (though they don't run all over the canvas without your consent), which were also quite helpful to me for blending.

I didn't get too crazy because this was more of a test than anything else, but I did play a little and try to flex my watercolor muscles to get a good feel for the process.

Honestly, I sincerely don't see why using watercolor on unprimed canvas comes across as such a taboo. Maybe I'm just an idiot who got lucky, but I didn't have any problems with it. Even the next day when I went back to it in better light it looked just fine. I even sprayed it with workable fixative to help preserve it; no issues.

So with my cute little mushroom scene under my belt, I know I'll be more open now to playing with my watercolors on canvas. And since there is no "right" way to do art, I would encourage others to at least give it a try and see how you feel about it with your watercolors.

P.S. There may or may not be something else coming up involving my little mushrooms here in the near future

Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings

Where to find me & my artwork:
My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

Description
This artwork is now available as a free Coloring Page !

More experimenting with watercolors!

I used the same Crafts 4 All set of 24 that I did on my Watercolor Kitty . And honestly, I'm still very impressed with how they handle for inexpensive watercolors.

But this piece was slightly more about trying watercolors in general on canvas. Because for some reason the internet is CONVINCED that if you want to use watercolor on canvas that you MUST prime it first with gesso and then again with an absorbent/watercolor ground. The only explanation is that the canvas won't be absorbent enough on its own and the paint will lift off easier.

That's fine and good and all, but the weird thing to me was that it seemed like no one had thrown caution to the wind and tried it anyway. Or at least if they had, they'd been severely drowned out by all of the insistence on priming.

This all came about because I've had a pack of 8"x10" canvases sitting on one of my art shelves, waiting for a purpose for a few months because I was previously not much into painting, but now that I'm starting to delve into painting with watercolor, I was wondering if that could be a use for the canvases.

The other thing is that, even though I haven't worked with canvas very much, but the few times I have I didn't bother to prime it with gesso (as is typically recommended) and had no issues. (And I wasn't using expensive, pre-primed canvases either. I use typically the cheapest I can get.) Additionally, I've used my Dr. Ph. Martin India Inks and ink in general on canvas with no problem, and from my experience with ink and watercolors, they behave pretty similarly. The main difference is just that ink tends to dry more permanently and usually comes in much thinner/more liquid forms.

Naturally, I wasn't satisfied with just taking the internet's word for it that I absolutely HAD to prime the canvas to use watercolor on it. So next time I found myself at DollarTree, I picked up a little pack of three baby 4"x6" canvas boards to experiment with. (Before going straight to one of the bigger canvases and potentially messing it up because I didn't know what I was doing.)

Then the other night while I was feeling artsy, I came across some pictures of mushrooms on Pinterest and got bitten very hard by the art bug, so I ended up with a small, cute sketch of a little mushroom trio.

It was a bit small for transferring onto my normal papers for coloring with markers or watercolor, and I didn't feel like using colored pencils. Originally, I had scanned it in just so I could make it bigger to use on my regular 5"x7" comfort realm for paper, but even after I had optimized it that way, it ended up clicking in my head that the original might be a good size to use on one of my tiny canvas boards.

So I grabbed some thin graph paper and my lightbox, traced the sketch, and then tried a technique I'd heard about where you shade the back of the drawing with graphite or charcoal (I went with graphite just in case I needed to fix it later and so if I wanted to I could erase it more easily), then you place in with the graphite side down on the canvas and trace the sketch with a fairly heavy hand. I was a little skeptical at how well it would work, but it actually did! The only real issue is that the texture of the canvas can tweak the lines a little, but it wasn't enough to deter me from ever trying this again.

Then I followed my usual routine of going over the lines in pen; opting for my black Sakura gelly roll so I wouldn't murder a felt tip with the canvas texture but the lines would hopefully not react to the water. Fortunately, you can't really tell in the finished piece, but I did accidentally smudge some of the ink before it had fully dried because it did take a little longer to dry on the canvas. I was able to quickly grab a Tombow Dual Brush blender marker and mostly clean up the mess though.

After letting the line art sit and dry for a little while, I came back to it armed with some small brushes, a glass of water, my watercolor palette, and curiosity to boot.

As I already started, these cheapo watercolors continued to surprise me with how well they work. They originally came in tubes, but I purchased a separate palette and squeezed a bit of the paint into half-pans and by this point, they had finally completely dried out. (Last time I used them it had been so humid around here that a few of them were still slightly malleable, but I was impatient) And they reactivated really beautifully; only the white felt like it needed more water, but that had more to do with the fact that I was trying to load it up to mix with other colors, and I needed more of it just because white is easily overpowered. (I have been considering purchasing a separate, bigger, maybe slightly more expensive tube of just white watercolor because of this since I know I'm probably going to go through it the quickest). But even the greens reactivated nicely; though my research had led me to believe that if I had trouble with any of them reactivating that it would be them.

To be fair, yes, the paint did lift a little easier than it would if you were using it on paper. However, this didn't really bother me because I actually found it quite useful for helping correct mistakes and occasionally to blend. Just as well, I also noticed the paint seemed to stay wet just a little bit longer and it flowed together a little more easily (though they don't run all over the canvas without your consent), which were also quite helpful to me for blending.

I didn't get too crazy because this was more of a test than anything else, but I did play a little and try to flex my watercolor muscles to get a good feel for the process.

Honestly, I sincerely don't see why using watercolor on unprimed canvas comes across as such a taboo. Maybe I'm just an idiot who got lucky, but I didn't have any problems with it. Even the next day when I went back to it in better light it looked just fine. I even sprayed it with workable fixative to help preserve it; no issues.

So with my cute little mushroom scene under my belt, I know I'll be more open now to playing with my watercolors on canvas. And since there is no "right" way to do art, I would encourage others to at least give it a try and see how you feel about it with your watercolors.

P.S. There may or may not be something else coming up involving my little mushrooms here in the near future

Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings

Where to find me & my artwork:
My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram