"Madly" new watercolor and ink painting by Courtney Khail
watercolor and ink on paper, unframed size 12" x 18" $1025
Sometimes I start a piece and have absolutely no clue what I'm doing. This one happens to be one of those pieces. I've really gotten into super close up florals and botanicals (like this one) but the morning I started this piece, I pulled back. I had a sketch from a while back of the outline of a flower (and I absolutely loved how it popped off the background) so I figured I'd explore that for a minute. I mean, why not, right? What's the worst that could happen? It's either going to be awesome, not good, but not bad, or absolute crap. And if it happened to be crap, it's not like anyone would ever have to see it. (That's something I stress repeatedly any time I teach. It's just paper. It's just paint. In the end, if it's the worst thing you've ever seen- the kind of terrible that probably wouldn't even make your mom's frig*- you can just recycle it and forget about it.)
While we're on that note- the same goes for Instagram and every other social media site out there. No one is making you share (and to be honest, no one wants to see everything any how) so curate away! (Unless you're one of my close friends who gets random photos deemed #notprettyenoughforinstagram. You know, like ones showing that I haven't put on real pants yet and it's already noon. Which for anyone who doesn't know this, pajama pants become "painting pants" during work hours.)
Yea. So, back to the art. I loosely sketched out kind of what was in my head, but like I said before, I wasn't really sure what that even looked like so I was pretty much winging it. Fast forward multiple hours over multiple days (you can't really ruse watercolors or you will end up with a muddy, sheet of "well this sucks") and I had the watercolor part done. And I was pretty excited about it looked.
And then came the inking. Which, pretty much throws me into a state of anxiety because an amazing painting can go downhill REALLY fast the moment I force a line or have too heavy of a hand. Spoiler alert: This was not one of those times. I actually love the line work here, which is precisely why you get to see it. And I do hope you enjoy it as well!
*or you know your frig. Nothing wrong with handing yourself a gold star every now and then. Did you shower today AND check your email? Gold star for you. Wait, what did you say? YOU DID TAXES?! Gold star AND a prize from the treasure chest. Good job adulting. You're rocking this.