Liquids VS Pans

Watercolour is one of my go to mediums. I have both pans and liquid water colours. But what's the difference? When do I use one and when the other?

Hopefully after this short review I'll have given you a better idea.

I use watercolour for my backgrounds. I choose the type of watercolour based on the kind of background I have in mind.

The liquid watercolours are much more powerful and can give you a really strong and colourful background. The pans aren't as saturated and can sometimes get a little "muddy" when you compare them to the liquid watercolours.

The pans are however much easier to handle. You can decide on the amount of colour you want by adding a lot of paint to your brush or by watering it down. I find this a lot more difficult with the liquid watercolours. I can't get the same amount of in-between-colours as I can with the pans.

I sometimes use a lot of layering in my backgrounds and for this I'll definitely use pans. They have a better finish once they're layered and with the extra control you can achieve some beautifully detailed backgrounds with alternating colours.

We all make mistakes. When you're painting with watercolour you can sometimes correct them by lifting the paint and "erasing" the mistake. It's a lot harder to lift liquid watercolour than pans.

I really like the amazing colours the liquid watercolours have which is why I almost always incorporate them in my paintings. If I want to have a layered background the first layer will be with liquid watercolour and then I'll layer with pans.

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Liquid watercolour: Royal Talens
Watercolour pans: Winsor & Newton

"It Smells Like Autumn" Step by Step

I just started school again and suddenly all my time and energy has just vanished. It's a whole new place, with all new people and on top of all that I need to concentrate and learn new things. For me that's quite draining. Thankfully already after just one week I can feel some of my energy coming back.

One thing that's certainly helping my energy get restored is the lovely cold autumn weather we've been having lately. Autumn is one of the best times of the year and I'm so happy it's upon us. In celebration of this amazing season, and that I found a spare couple of hours, I've painted a small autumn painting.

I'm sure it won't be the last autumn inspired piece I do in the nearest future.

I started off with a light sketch and taped the edges with washi tape.

Then using gouache I painted the bear. I probably could have been a bit more detailed with the fur but I just felt like doing a small and quick painting so I didn't want to spend too much time on it. 

Again using gouache I painted the little bird and the falling autumn leaves. 

With liquid watercolour I painted the background. I was trying not to add paint to the bear, bird and leaves but still get very close to their edges.

For the final touches I used liquid watercolour to add uncontrolled splashes to the painting. I then used pen to outline the bear, bird and leaves to make them pop. I also added some small details to the leaves using coloured pencil. 

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Gouache: Royal Talens

Liquid watercolour: Royal Talens
Pen: Micron
Coloured pencil: Faber-Castell