Do you ever try out a new hobby, wondering if this new interest will reveal a hidden skill you didn’t know you had? I’ve done this about a million times. Okay, that number is an exaggeration, but you get the point.
I’ve always loved to paint. My favorite medium to work with is acrylic paint. The plasticity of the acrylic allows me to work the paint into shape; it’s almost sculptural. Acrylic is forgiving. You can make a mistake and with one sweep of the brush it’s the composition is reborn.
Watercolors are less forgiving. Too much water and the paint blooms across the paper. Not enough water and the paint’s too thick, adding water only saturates the one thickly blotted area of the page.
It would be easier to stick with what I know and continue using acrylics, but I want to do something different. To grow as a painter, I need to use different materials and tools to learn technique. Watercolors are my next challenge.