January Art Date
Where I've been, Richard Scarry and jelly gouache
Hey Art Girlfriends!
Oops! It’s been a year and a half since our last date! Let me catch you up:
I’ve been writing my own picture books to pitch for years now, but in 2024, I started drawing a fat unicorn with angry eyebrows as an inside joke. He lived in my brain for over a year until he accidentally turned into my best story yet. Before I could say “wait, is this even good?” my agent was sending it off to publishers and within a month, we got our first offer! Now I’m here, working on final art for a wonderfully stupid book that no one will see until 2027.
With nothing but secret books to sit on, I thought we’d have a little fun in the meantime…
I’m committing to playing with traditional media once a month this year, and you’re coming with me!
For the last few months, Instagram has been serving me a lot of Richard Scarry art, so I decided to use his work as a starting point for my experiments.
In the spirit of saving money, I chose my watercolour travel kit as my first medium to test. And hey, as someone who has always hated watercolour, that was a crazy move.
I’ve never enjoyed or fully understood watercolour, so I was really underwhelmed with the results. I thought I could save it with fountain pen details, but it just reminded me of the way I drew when I was 12:
Terrified that this mediocre drawing would deter me from my new goal, I pivoted and bought myself something special: jelly gouache!
First of all, I was not expecting this small 24 colour palette to be so heavy—there is a lot of gouache in here! If you’ve had your eyes on these, it’s time to listen to your heart. The HIMI white doesn’t layer very well so I’ve been opting for my Holbein white instead, but otherwise these have been an absolute delight!
After the extremely satisfying process of opening up the jelly packs and swatching all the colours, I pulled an old sketch from my iPad and just went for it. I stopped trying to mimic Richard Scarry, and just let the earthier tones and coloured pencil details make these little guys feel much more like me.
I’m not a gouache expert, and I wouldn’t even call myself a painter, but filling in my sketch and seeing those brush strokes in the final art is scratching an itch I’ve had for a while. I think we might be onto something here.
If you’re a Real Actual Painter, what’s your favourite medium? How do I learn to love watercolour? Is it the quality of supplies or the application? Let me know what I should try next time!
A big part of what is fun about watercolor is the interaction between the water and the paint. I like doing big wet washes first, so I prewet the area I’m going to work on with water first before laying any paint down, otherwise the paint absorbs immediately and gets all blotchy.
Having a good quality watercolor matters because if there is more filler than pigment, you can’t really mix colors together or let them travel along the paper.
Also, congrats on the book offer! It’s encouraging to hear that sometimes that silly idea in our heads is a good one.
Your book looks amazing!
Also, Real Actual watercolor painter here! 😉 Watercolor is my favorite medium because you can play around with texture. How watered down it is/how you layer it/how you combine colors when wet vs. dry can all change how the colors and textures look. If you prefer flat colors and control it may not be for you though.