The Watercolor Experiment

Is there a right way and a wrong way to use watercolor paint, or is "right" and "wrong" completely subjective?

I sat down with my line drawing of Cosette, a glass of water and some watercolor tubes and got down to business in my habitual, overly slow and fussy way. I added layer after layer of paint, darkening spots and sometimes blending, sometimes, not. 
I kind of liked the outcome. 

But...isn't watercolor supposed to be a free and easy (appearing) way of coloring? Wasn't I using the medium as if it were acrylic? 
So I made a sketchy, cartoonish rendering of the same photo and threw some paint at it, quick and dirty style, colors flowing everywhere. Just to see if the coloring would please me. (I warn you: hold your thumb over her face--the experiment was mostly about clothing/fabric depiction.)
It's hard to tell if the coloring does please me, in that the drawing is so meh,* but I'll give it some more study.

*Actually, worse than meh. Much, much worse.

Comments

  1. I say it's all subjective! I'm a tight painter if there ever was one, but I do like to let watercolor do its wet, wild thing in the background. Then I get out my 4x0 brushes & get all detail-mad. So long as you do the wet stuff first you can have the best of both worlds! I do this with acrylics too.

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  2. Paintings Beautiful painting and i like this designs.

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