Watercolour Painting Workspace

Hello!

Yesterday I sat down to continue working on a watercolour painting for my Mother-in-Law. I picked up my brush, then paused. My workspace looked so artistically messy, it made me happy – which is important to me right now, because as a long time artist’s block sufferer (seven years and counting!), any bit of motivation counts.

Any tips for getting over creative blocks? Share them in the comments! : )!

Lemme do a quick tour (the arrangement of things are changed since yesterday, since I tweaked it to almost-perfection):

1. Laptop: Used to display my reference image, as well as to play YouTube videos. When my mind gets into the zone I usually tune everything out, but I still prefer having noise around. Music for some reason, isn’t as good as chatter.
2. Tripod + Phone: I am a sucker for timelapse videos. It also helps me see my progress, which is a huge motivation boost.
3. Reference Items: The miniature trial painting I did for my Mother-in-Law to approve before I started the real thing, and paint swatches so I know how the colours will look on paper.
4. SNACKS: Yes, I’m eating crackers with chopsticks. Everything with chopsticks is better.
5. Refuse Container *New Addition!*: I bought these watercolour paints a decade ago. An advantage to watercolours (vs say, acrylics) is that it doesn’t matter if it dries out on the palette; you just add water and keep going. A symptom of this characteristic is that as an art block patient, I believe I’ve only ever had to open and squeeze these tubes a total of twice. So when I decided to refill my palette with paint, I had to deal with dry paint chips falling off of the tube, paint separation which meant some clear, oily liquid was coming out instead of the paint…. A refuse container just seemed logical.

Show me your workspaces! : )

I’m still learning a lot about using watercolours. Variegated washes are still very difficult for me, as well as fixing mistakes! I’m still definitely much more comfortable with acrylics.

Newbie mistake #1: Not pre-wetting my swatch paper.

Update (Sept 9, 2016): I’ve finished my painting! Take a look! : )