Colours of Porto Emerge

Dear Sarah - Day 108 of our daily drawing exchange

April 18, 2025
Hi Nikki,

Great to see you today and good to be hashing out next steps in All She Wrote.

I did the next two steps in the Porto drawing: heavier lines followed by watercolour. This is the first time I have used watercolours, and I didn't buy pricey ones with the exact colours he was using, so I made an attempt to mix colours to get the desired effect. I also have NO idea how much water to use to get the transparent effect he achieves, so I muddled along (and muddied along) until he said that was enough colour. He made it look so easy!! The next step is adding tone with watercolour brush pens. But that's for another day.

XO Sarah

Hi Sarah-

Well, I LOVE what’s going on in your Porto piece!! I’m very much looking forward to seeing what comes next! I really enjoyed our visit to Porto a couple of years ago. We did an on-site drawing class with a local art teacher who had a passion for history and architecture (much fun, if a tad intimidating) and in your artwork I can see the old buildings of Porto as I remember them…

I have no idea what I’m doing with watercolour either, but stuck with our parallel theme of adding some colour to yesterday’s underdrawings. I did take the precautionary step of gluing my cheap paper to the page beneath so it didn’t completely disintegrate.

I’d like to take an actual watercolour class with a living, breathing, in-the-flesh person (they do occasionally offer them at ArtsPlace here in town). I think I would enjoy the looseness of the medium if I could figure out how to sort of control what’s going on.

And, of course, improving my underdrawing would be helpful.

Oh thank goodness there another day lies ahead…

Cheers,
Nikki