I am new to watercolor. I was afraid of this medium for a long time. But this year I started to watch online tutorials and do simple projects. I made this one after taking the "Tattoed Whale - An adventure in watercolor" class by Janet Asbury on Skillshare.
The class explains how to use masking fluid to get the effect of white "tattoo" on a whale.
It was not easy to use masking fluid. It dries very fast and destroys the brushes. I used a cheap brush from a dollar store, so my watercolor brushes were safe. The second challenge was that the color of masking fluid and the paper is the same - white. So I added a hint of blue watercolor to see where masking fluid comes.
No matter how I tried the edges of the tattoo came out messy and uneven. I decided to make gold, silver and black embellishments to see how they look.
After this project I decided to experiment a bit and recreate this picture two more times. I did the first remake in watercolor too. But this time I was trying to make the tattoo edges precise and even. I used wood cuticle sticks, and it was a bit easier. The edges came out better but I corrected them with watercolor anyway.
The last version of this project was made with digital watercolor. I introduced glitter to make tattoos pop and added bubbles and plant details.
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