Watercolor Portrait: A Beginner’s Attempt

I’m freshly new, like wet paint, to watercolors and this project was my second attempt at making a portrait for a friend (the first was for Claire, who upon hearing I’d just taken up painting demanded I make her a mermaid with the moon, because her expectations are soooo reasonable). This second painting was for my friend Nicki who’s about to pop out her second babe, and who, whenever she’s having a hard time (like during the late stages of pregnancy), asks me to “send the fairies!” I took pictures throughout this project to document my process, which is simply: draw first, then paint over.

To begin, I lightly sketched my basic outline to paint over:

Taped the paper to my easel and laid down the first light layer of paint, mainly as border:

Added more light color, trying to avoid skin areas as much as possible:

Started to paint in details and added layers of color; struggled with how to paint the beauty of her red hair:

Used a fine tip brush to paint the fairies and flowers (this was my favorite part); also tried a splattering technique for the final version:

The end result (I like how the tape on the edges creates an unclean border once removed):

Things I can improve on in future projects:

• Hair: hair is hard to paint in general, and add the color red and it was a hot mess.
• Creating depth: my paintings are very flat. In fact when Nicki got this in the mail she thought I’d just made her hips really big until her husband pointed out it was her pregnant belly. Clearly, I need to figure out how to use color to create a sense of depth. I think maybe darker paint on the bottom part of the belly would have helped?
• I’m not great at drawing or painting people: the facial features are simple and I relied on the pencil lines rather than feeling confident to paint them on, so this is a big focus for me in all future projects.
• Blending colors: I’m still learning how the paper, water, and paints all interact to create either smooth blending or hard lines.

All in all, there were struggles, there were mistakes, but I really love how my fairies turned out!

Added bonus: Claire as mermaid

(Yes, I did avoid having to paint tits by the oh-so-subtle placement of hair, because nipples were just way too intimidating to try on my very first painting…)