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Description

In June 2019, I finally got myself a tube of quinacridone rose (Daniel Smith) watercolor, and I wanted to try it out. So, instead of something sensible like fruit or leaves or flowers, I paint this sea dragon on 9 x 12 cold press Arches.

I'm not a fan of it. My sketch turned out better than this did, but at least the ocean turned out neat. I used a white crayon for wax-resist, and white gouache for the pearl/fix areas that should be lighter.

I was going for a seashell theme for the dragon, with pinkish-white scales with a little blue and yellow, and made the wings like the inside of a conch (or whatever) shell.

But, it just ended up looking so lousy, in my opinion... . The sky looks blotchy (I've seen smooth watercolor skies; just doesn't work for me...), and I had to keep editing it afterwards (in Photoshop Elements) to get the lighting/color matching the original. Bleh.

But I decided to go ahead and upload two years later; just 'cause I don't like it, doesn't mean others will feel the same.

Description

In June 2019, I finally got myself a tube of quinacridone rose (Daniel Smith) watercolor, and I wanted to try it out. So, instead of something sensible like fruit or leaves or flowers, I paint this sea dragon on 9 x 12 cold press Arches.

I'm not a fan of it. My sketch turned out better than this did, but at least the ocean turned out neat. I used a white crayon for wax-resist, and white gouache for the pearl/fix areas that should be lighter.

I was going for a seashell theme for the dragon, with pinkish-white scales with a little blue and yellow, and made the wings like the inside of a conch (or whatever) shell.

But, it just ended up looking so lousy, in my opinion... . The sky looks blotchy (I've seen smooth watercolor skies; just doesn't work for me...), and I had to keep editing it afterwards (in Photoshop Elements) to get the lighting/color matching the original. Bleh.

But I decided to go ahead and upload two years later; just 'cause I don't like it, doesn't mean others will feel the same.