One of the biggest reasons paintings fail is that the artist fails to plan. Students are sometimes in a rush to get to the painting part, going for a quick line drawing of the subject and then filling in the shapes by trying to match each color individually. Instead they should be trying to find color relationships that work and exploring different options to find one that really resonates with them. Below is an example of planning I went through for a painting of my dog Casey (which has yet to be painted, but I've used these studies for watercolors of other dogs):
If you're wondering about the pencilled-in notes on my sample page, I've used abbreviations for paint colors used in my paint mixes and recorded the colors so that I can recreate them.
- AY=Aureolin (Yellow)
- V=Viridian (Green)
- CR=Cadmium Red
- CB=Cobalt Blue
- WG=Winsor Green (blue shade)
- AC=Alizarin Crimson
- LR=Light Red
- IR=Indian Red
- PR=Permanent Rose
- UB=French Ultramarine (blue)
I've tested background colors here to see how they work together with Casey's coloring. It's not necessary to paint the whole painting twice, but it really does help to work out the important relationships beforehand!
