Like everyone else, I’d done watercolour in a few primary-school lessons. Those were all the watercolours I’d ever done. The other day, while browsing Tumblr, I came across someone doing this kind of work as a speedart — i.e. sped up — and that’s what finally got me to pick up a brush. Note: there’s a difference between watercolour and gouache, but I’ll just say “watercolour” throughout — keep that in mind.

I jumped on YouTube and watched a few “how do you do this, what should I watch out for?” videos. I had Faber-Castell’s gouache paints at home — bought once but I don’t even remember why. Pulled them out. I had a PonArt 214A size-16 brush at home. All that was left was the frame for my piece. I grabbed one for 6 TL at one of those everything-for-1-TL stores. I also had a tiny brush for fine detail (I never read the brand). And for the star effect I used a no-longer-useful toothbrush. I did the first piece following this video. Here’s what came out:

Then came the second piece. This one started with me going to Bauhaus for some other supplies, spotting watercolour frames and grabbing two. Having bought the frames, I couldn’t not grab the Cadence Art CA7012 brushes in sizes 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 — so those came home too. And finally I picked up a colour palette for 2-3 TL — you can’t keep using a plate forever, right?

This time, instead of copying something exactly, I worked from a photo — not pixel-perfect, but using my own angle and the colours as reference. To keep the sun area white, I placed a 1 TL coin on the page and painted around it.

So now I have two pieces. You can start doing this kind of work too. Just do your homework first, and don’t forget to test colour mixes on a scrap of paper before you start.