Watercolour Jellyfish 🌈🖌

Well hello, stranger

I grew up with a very artistic mother, so as a child I was often dragged into painting something, making something, colouring and so on. I used to enjoy it until time became limited and I stopped doing what I enjoy. Well during covid I was able to pick these hobbies up again. With the first lockdown, I go new watercolours, paper and a few brushes. Since then I take time to sit down and be creative even if it's just once a month.

I'm not a fan of sharing my drawings and painting as I view them as insignificant to other great artists out there, but @technicalside has pushed me to share pieces now and then.

This is a little painting I did one weekend over December 2022, in less than an hour. I painted a jellyfish during covid and felt like he needed a friend. I want to make a few of them in different colours. It can add a bit of colour to an office space or something in the future.

I enjoy small, fun paintings. I have anxiety and have struggled with shaky hands my entire life, but when I do fine work, my hands are steady. Fine line drawings, colouring and small paintings give me so much joy! So You can see I use small paintbrushes. I only used four brushes for this painting, each serving a goal to help blend, dry and shape the little jellyfish.

I drew a jellyfish shape with a pencil since I can shape things from nothing like other people 😂. I decided to make the little jellyfish blue and green, seeing as the one I already have was looking like a rainbow 🌈.

I use Lyra, Osiris watercolour pencils. I grew up with watercolour pencils, tried watercolours and gouache, and decided to go back to pencils. I still use watercolours now and then for big paintings and add details with pencils. I feel like I have more control over the pencils.

So I decided to colour the top part blue, making an ombre effect with different shades. From the bottom, I used the same technique with the green. I left an open space between the two to allow a space to blend.

Yes, I do paint on the floor! This is where I'm comfortable. I feel awkward when painting at a table and prefer the floor or standing upright. I feel safe in my little space with all my focus on the task at hand.

I blended the blue and green with the water and went back in with the pencils to fix some spots. I didn't like the way the green blended in the corner so I added a darker green to balance it out.

I removed the pencil marks as best I could and went in with a brush dipped in the pencil tip to add a few jellyfish strings. I wet the brush and take up a bit of colour from the pencil tip. It's easy to control the pigment by dabbing the brush on a piece of paper until you have the colour you want.

Once dry, I go in with a fine liner. I use the 0.1 tip to outline my paintings just to give them a more put-together look. I also added eyes to this little jellyfish. And a signature! You can see I did this in 2022 🤣, if I remember correctly it was in December.

And finally, the rainbow jellyfish has a friend! I want to make a couple of them. I just need to take time every other weekend and paint one.

Thank you for stopping by! I hope you make time for your hobbies during busy weeks. We tend to forget to take care of ourselves and do something we enjoy.