Strides: January 10, 2025
An art progress report of sorts
An update on my latest works-in-progress, if notable Strides have been made. Posted on Fridays.
This week, I wanted to try my hand at a watercolor project with a photo of the sunrise that I took a couple weeks ago.
The colors caught my eye, and I’ve been dabbling with watercolor since the end of last year. Why not, right?
To begin, I broke out my Sakura Pigma Micron pens. They’re archival, so I knew they can stand the watercolor (but it’s also my go-to standard for drawing, if I’m being honest). Thus far, I’ve mostly finished the trees and branches, which is all I intended to do before finally moving onto the painting process.
For whatever reason, I became encapsulated by the way the paper absorbed the ink while using the larger-tipped pens. I went from pausing to prevent muddling up the details to pausing for learning purposes.
I think that, the more you can learn from the tools you use to make art, the closer you’ll get to what you ultimately envisioned in the end.
(And they do teach you. You just have to be willing to listen.)
I have to admit that drawing these branches went from tedious to cathartic. I learned more than I could’ve imagined about creating realism by minding the pressure of each pen stroke (at least as it pertains to branches and trees).
The original photo I was working from also shed new light on just how trees branch out (no pun intended) as they grow and expand – which is something most of us rarely think about while we go about our days around them.