1.
05/05/2015
Cotman watercolours. Intentionally unnatural colours (that don't come across at all in the photo - that grass is NOT that shade of green). I couldn't be bothered with mixing, I just wanted to play with my new cards.
2.
22/05/2015
Cotman watercolours and Copic Multiliner in Sepia. No sketch lines, no idea what I was doing, done freehand while the next one was taking ages to dry. Turned out to be my favourite so far.
3.
26/05/2015
Cotman watercolour. Playing with more muted tones for a landscape scribble but I didn't really like them. I think I prefer the brighter ones I'm used to. Landscapes remain one of my art nemeses.
4.
06/06/2015
Cotman watercolour. Wanted to play with drawing pansies but then decided to turn this into a waterbrush test. I've never painted with a waterbrush before. Conclusion: detail is impossible, water water everywhere. I had to work with water when I didn't want water, which meant it had to be done in lots of layers (something I don't like doing with watercolour anymore) and the paint ended up thick and flat. For work like this, the waterbrush isn't ideal. I imagine it's more suited to sketching, which is what people use them for, so I'll try it for that soon.
5.
10/06/2015
This turned out a lot better than the last eye I tried to paint (and wasted a much smaller piece of paper, too) but I still have so much I need to improve. Eyelashes and eyebrows are really hard to do with the brushes that I have - I may have to dig my sable rigger out when I try these in future.
The only one I signed with paint and a brush is the third one, the rest were done with a Copic Multiliner. I'm not good at signing my name in miniature: 2.5"x3.5" doesn't give you much to work with! They're all a bit warped, as you can see. I did tape them all down, but there's only so much tape you can put on a card that tiny and still have a surface left to paint on.
I'm going to blog these like I did (and should still be doing but shhh) the Instagram photos. Every five ACEOs will be a blog. I have around 200 cards: I'm hoping to see an improvement as I work through them.