Watercolor for a change

I’ve been looking through The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics, a massive compendium of American newspaper comic that covers from 1860 to 1980. Comic artists were doing amazing stuff, all of it with pen and ink drawing colored with watercolor or gouache. All of this graphic richness inspired me to forage in the supply pantry for my neglected watercolor paints.

I used my Cotman paints on Alley Oop and my Daniel Smith paints on Betty Burro. Daniel Smith paints are more brilliant than the Cotman paints, but they’re both fine for what I’m doing. The workflow included scanning the painting then loading it into Krita for cleanup.

Watercolor is definitely scary. It takes a leap of faith to put the wet brush on the paper. There’s no going back.