Even more life drawing in watercolour

Published on 30 October, 2025

#art #not-writing #life-drawing #watercolour

For a while I went back to life drawing in charcoal rather than watercolour, after a run of sketches that really weren't working out. With short poses (1 minute, 5 minutes, 10 minutes and 20 minutes), the more predictable and monochromatic medium was a nice break! But after getting back into my watercolour groove a bit with my travel sketchbook, I've been trying it out again.

Some things I've been playing around with:

Using A3 Kmart drawing paper. Working at a larger size, with larger brushes opens up more space for detail and experimenting, and the cheaper paper handles watercolour pretty well. Some warping and not as crisp with the colours, but it helps me feel less precious about "wasting" good watercolour paper that's much more expensive.
Doing a little thumbnail sketch in the corner to map the shapes and values and decide on composition, then get straight into painting. This has helped me be more intentional about taking up space in the page, and sometimes focusing on part of the figure rather than trying to tackle everything. Sometimes I think the more "zoomed in" compositions feel more intimate, especially when I take the time to think about the composition.
Using a contrasting colour (usually cobalt blue) to fill in a background area and highlight parts, especially lighter areas where the paper is unpainted.
Sometimes using a darker shade to outline areas that need some more definition, sometimes leaving them as lost edges.

I feel like a combination of more confidence with watercolour, diving in rather than sketching, and working with larger brushes have made a huge difference to the results I'm getting. I'm embracing watercolour's unpredictability and moving away from drawing an outline that I then colour in, which I think means for more lively and interesting abstractions rather than tightly controlled sketches. I'm spending less time trying to accurately capture what I see and more on thinking about the design, composition, and how I want it to feel. It's looser and better fits the beauty of being able to paint a live model.

Model: Sharna