6/22/2022 Melting Watercolor Paint is a MessAndy and I used to live in humid in Miami, Florida. The average humidity in Miami is between 50ish% - 70ish% year-round, like in Ojochal, Costa Rica where are living. The HUGE difference is that Miami has air conditioning everywhere. In Costa Rica, air conditioning is rarely found or used, no matter how hot or rainy. Air conditioning acts as a dehumidifier as it allows the air to dry out. Since there’s no air conditioning…the air stays humid…and…
Andy and I are renting a house that has NO glass in the windows. The windows have a decorative and practical ironwork and screens. We have lots of fans to keep the air circulating in our home. The fans keep things dryer and us cooler: double win. The bad is that we also have a lot of humidity, no matter how many fans move the air around…so we use a lot of Ziploc bags to keep things as dry as possible. Sadly, many things stay damp…and there isn’t a way to dry them (no oven, no iron). One of these things are the watercolors that I loved to use with my sketchbooks. I learned that watercolors melt. The binder (glue), that holds the pigment (color) melts when the paint is kept in humid conditions. It takes just a couple of days for most of the colors to turn runny. I’m writing this not to complain but more to laugh. Laugh because no one ever mentions melting watercolor paints. I did Google this…and found only One artist writing about it. In the meantime, my sketchbooks will only have blue or brown line drawings and little if any color. My next post will be how I can maybe fix my watercolor kits…maybe…. Once the paint goes on the canvas, the grid disappears. These cats are done in my “goofy cats” style, meaning I use collaged acrylics to draw them. So how do I use a grid when the original penciled in grid is gone? Using one of those quilting rules, I drew up grids with a permanent marker on cut down pieces of used laminating plastic sheets. I hold up my plastic grid to my painting and compare my painting to a digital photo with a grid on it. As I compare my painting to my digital photograph, it’s easier to fix lines and colors by flipping the plastic grid sheet on and off my painting. If you’d like to see some of the custom dog and cat paintings I’ve done, please visit my webpage about them. Click on these sentences to see and get a free eBook of how to work with me for your custom pet painting. Read more about why I began cheating while painting custom pet paintings by clicking these previous blog posts:
I Cheat When I Paint Pets Using the Grid in My Painting Studio 4/6/2022 Using the grid in my painting studioHow I make grids on canvas I now begin every custom pet painting with a grid as I learned from painting dog Nakita. The ruler is a quilting ruler, if you’re wondering. If you need straight lines for any project, this type of ruler beats the school ruler hands down for ease of use! 1. After adding my own layer of gesso, I take out my ruler and pencil in one-inch squares. 2. Using an app, I add a layer of squares onto the digital photo of the pet I’m painting. 3. Once the grid is penciled, I can draw the cats onto these canvases. The unique part of these cat paintings are that they are going to be done in “goofy style,” not “realistically.” The lines will blur when I add the acrylic skins and papers. The grid will still help as I paint and collage in the cats. I’ll show you how I keep using grids in later blog post. If you’d like to see some of the custom dog and cat paintings I’ve done, please visit my webpage about them. Click on these sentences to see and get a free ebook of how to work with me for your custom pet painting. ![]() This is the 2nd quilt ruler I have because my blue one was in storage. As you can see, it doesn’t have the lines across in grid style, which makes using this particular ruler very difficult when measuring out smaller than an inch increments. It’s in my studio…but it will spend more time hanging out than being used. If you want a quilt ruler, try to find a version of my favorite one! 3/30/2022 I cheat when I paint petsNakita was the last custom dog painting I ever drew free handed. I spent extra hours repainting her doggy smile. I learned quite a lot from painting her…including that
Cheating with a grid is ok!
I now begin every custom pet painting with a grid. If you’d like to see some of the custom dog and cat paintings I’ve done, please visit my webpage about them. Click on these sentences to see and get a free ebook of how to work with me for your custom pet painting. We live in a very small, cute house while we build our new home in Costa Rica. This means very limited art painting making happy space. This is ok, as I’m sticking to studying for a class I’m enjoying. Everything is small for this class: paper swatches, painting surfaces, supplies, etc. This is good…because as I make new things there is limited storage space, too. The first few weeks here were spent at the coffee table and the back patio tables. I’m still spending time at the coffee table for things like collaging and cutting paper. I adore my new art table. We decided to have local Uvita craftsman Freddy make us this table. Here’s all the reasons why we love this table:
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CategoriesAll Art In The News Art Studio Cats Classes Costa Rica Painting Painting Studio Pets Sketching Drawing, painting both analog and digital, and other artsy things while living in Costa Rica.
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