WIP Watercolor for The Witches by Roald Dahl
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Hello, I was hoping to get some feedback on my painting for The Witches. The scene is from the beginning of the book when the boy's parents die in a car accident and he moves in with his grandmother in Norway.
One thing I regret, but it's too late to change, is that it is not clear if the boy is leaving or staying. I think it would have been good if the grandmother gestured to the house, or if the boy had been standing by himself outside with his suitcases and the grandmother had the door open, looking out. Anyway, I'll just make do with what I have.
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I feel really stuck with how to finish the background? Any suggestions? Leave it as it is? More colors? More shadows? Details?
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Any other feedback that is doable with watercolor would be great aswell.
You can also find my full process on my blog here https://www.arthurcampling.com/https/arthurcamplingblogspotcom
Cheers eveyone!
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@Arthur-Campling in my opinion and assuming that this day is ment to be dreary I would not add anything else, except maybe add slightly more color to the background houses for balance. Making Grandma's house still the most vibrant in color but with slight washes of those (similar) colors for the eye to wander through then come back to the main focus.
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I like it! The composition and balance of details are nice. The only think I would add to the background is a few signs of life. I don't know the context of the story but I assume the village is inhabited. I suggest having smoke coming from the houses chimneys, or a touch of yellow light coming from some of the windows. Otherwise, I get the impression that the village in uninhabited. Hope it helps to see what I see!
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You might need to try making a black and white photo to tell for sure, so I could be wrong...
but the house might need to be a touch more saturated/warm to stand out from the background? The chimney for example blends right in with the background. It needs something to make the silhouette of the house just a bit more clear. Might need to edit in post, or add an outline of some kind? Just something to give it a tiny bit more contrast to really pop, if it blends in to much in black and white mode -
I think bouth of your suggestions are addressing a problem that I had not seen. After I made this post I messed up the whole painting. Its such a painfull medium to work in. But I have been taking high res photos of the painting, and will try the changes you have suggested.
Thanks alot!
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@jahn Yes indeed, I do see what you mean! Its ment to be a "real" village in Norway set in the late 1900s. I actually had a car in the bottom right corner but removed it for some reason. Maybe a few things like that would make it more alive. Thanks for the feedback!
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In the 1970’s through the 1990’s I illustrated using watercolor and an airbrush. A friend used to work as a background artist at Disney in the 1930’s and 1040’s. He told me that whenever he got into trouble with a watercolor painting he would use his airbrush to touch up where needed.
In your painting, such a touch up might be masking off the primary house and the applying a subtle halo or white glow to separate it from the background.
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@Arthur-Campling That is the worst! I have have done that before on watercolor too and it is frustrating. I'm glad you got some great pictures though so that you could keep working on your art piece
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@thomas-young Cool, its so valuable with people with so much experience. I will have to try this effect in photoshop and see what it does. I do love the old Disney movies and the way they where done.
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@Arthur-Campling I would do less detail to the background if it's not too late to change. Especially the furthest house. The area around the house I would make a little more vibrant and detailed and make add more to the house. Are you thinking of inking over it? I think the house would look great if you went over the line work with a dip pen.
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Thanks, everyone, for all your feedback. This forum is really awesome! Since I ruined the original, I couldn't try all the feedback I received, but I want to learn and understand what went 'wrong' or how it could be improved. So I worked on it digitally. This isn't really what I want to do in the future. I want my watercolors to be done when I put down the brush, with maybe some tiny adjustments to details and colors, but not like I did here. Anyway, here is how it looks now!
In my most recent paintings, I have started to do a wet-in-wet wash before blocking in colors (which I did not do here), and this has helped tremendously whith values, details and tones.
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@Arthur-Campling very nice! Quite a leap forward in that you managed to create unity overall while separating the foreground house simultaneously!
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@Arthur-Campling you cleaned it up nice, sorry the original didn’t work out. I’ve heard artists like Lee White will do color studies before going into the final piece. Like thumbnails. Doing more of those might help catch value stuff in the future.
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The only thing that’s left is a tiny bit more detail of the characters, at least their faces. Also LOVE the detail in the reflection of the windows
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@kayleenartlover lol you are totally right, they dont have any eyes
In the future I think I need to work on a larger paper then this, then the faces would have been easier. I did this on a 30x40 cm (12x16 inch) and should have done it on my larger 40x60 (18x24 inch) papers. -
@Arthur-Campling what type of paper and weight? Hot press or cold? Do you mount it on a sturdy illustration board or stretch it?
My favorite size to work analog 30 to 40 years ago was 20 x 30 inches. Now I work 12 x 18, 13 x 19, and 15 x 20 inches.
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I use Arches hot pressed 300 grams, never really tried anything else as I have understood it's one of the best papers for illustrations. I've tried all kinds of ways to mount it. What I do now is I soak the paper for maybe 10-15 minutes, put it on a 10 mm plywood board, staple it around the edges, and then also use gum tape to keep the edges from buckling. I have tried using standard masking tape, but it always loses grip from the water. I have heard that high-grade painter's masking tape is a good option, so maybe I need to try that. Gum tape is a nuisance to get off, so I usually just cut off the edges.
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@Arthur-Campling
I use the blue wide painters tape and it works very well for me. Keep in mind my pieces aren’t very large, 17X8 lately so I don’t know about larger pieces. -
@Larue Yes, I'm going to get hold of that tape. For smaller pieces or when I'm not doing a large wash, it's usually fine just to tape it. It's when I soak it and do a lot of wet washes that things need to be tight!
