I Botched!

Yes, it’s true, the nose has been scrubbed out. That’s because it didn’t look quite right to me, and by 'not quite right' I mean it looked 'short'—too much upper lip. So I measured it and I was a full 2mm off! Yikes—on a small painting (8"x 11"), that’s a lot.

Here’s where watercoloring gets tricky, and is unlike painting with oil or acrylic. You can’t just wipe out a mistake and start over (my husband will attest to this: he just finished a portrait of me [my head, on a John Singer Sargent] and I ended up looking like an orange on a toothpick! Okay, that’s an exaggeration—it wasn’t off by much, but we kept looking at it and felt as if something was ‘off.’ The solution? ‘Wipe’ it out and try again [which he did, and I’m all better, now])

Not so easy with watercolor. I can scrub or scrape depending on how much paint is down, and whether or not the color is ‘permanent.’ In this case, I scrubbed with a wet brush—it removes not only paint, but paper also, which is dicey. Then, I let it dry thoroughly, and as it’s doing so, scan it and post it for the world to see. Hopefully, I’ll be able to redeem myself; if not—well, that’s just the way it goes…and you get to watch…

...Stay tuned for the ‘nose rescue’ and the photo from which I’m working…