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Before I get into talking about the art and my process, a little reminder/announcement that the drawing tablet I use for all my digital art and touch-ups/additions to my traditional art (so 60% or more of my work altogether) has succumbed to a hardware issue and I'm trying to drum up funds for a replacement. You can read the full story in this journal entry , and if you'd like to help me out My (traditional) Commissions , dA Printshop , Redbubble (where you can get this very artwork as prints & merch!), and Ko-Fi pages are all great ways to do that, and I thank you so much in advance for doing so. Even just spreading the word helps a lot!

This artwork is now available as a free Coloring Page! A version with the text: I Love Mew Coloring Page And a version without it: I Love Mew Coloring Page (No text)

Hmm. Does this look familiar? If so, that's because I tried remaking Watercolor Kitty , one of my first attempts at branching out into watercolor from about this time last year. I thought it would be a good opportunity to get in an appropriately seasonal piece of art and see how I've improved with my watercolor (and to a lesser extent, cat drawing) skills since then.

Last year, I intended for that image to be uploaded in time for Valentine's Day, but that didn't happen because I was a bit too optimistic about how quickly I could have it painted and prepared once my then-new paints arrived to me. This time I was determined to not let that happen again. Fortunately, this time I already had the paints, so that left me with just actually making the drawing and painting it.

Believe it or not, I used the exact same reference image for this drawing as I did for the original, but I followed the reference more closely and used the style I've been using for all my themed kitty drawings lately. It's still not a 1:1 to the reference, but I'm still pretty pleased with how it turned out.

So I made my little sketch, and then scanned it in and used the method I've been favoring lately of taking the sketch and making the clean lines digitally (in part to force myself to get more accustomed to my non-Cintiq set up) and then print them out and trace them onto the paper of my choosing.

Compared to Watercolor Kitty, this time around I had slightly nicer (not professional quality, but nicer) watercolors to work with, and I went as far as to use some of the 100% cotton watercolor paper I have in my stash, even though by this point I've been working with the same paper from the original painting (Cason XL watercolor paper) that I think I still could've seen an improvement with it all the same. But, I wanted to be sure.

I primarily used my Master's Touch 48 half-pan set watercolors (which I should mention are becoming my favorite among the watercolors I own), but I ended up grabbing a few pastel yellows from my Arteza tube watercolors around the cat's eyes and mouth. While I tried to leave the white of the paper and lift the paint as is the "proper" watercolor technique, the red color had already stained the paper a little too strongly, so I relied on the more opaque nature of the Arteza paints to bring back that lightness I wanted. It's still not as bright as it maybe should be compared to the reference, but because I prefer smooth blending this is as light as I was going to get it and still accomplish that.

Honestly, comparing the two, I'm not sure one is necessarily better than the other. Stylistically, this one feels more refined and the colors are more saturated/vibrant, but that's about it. You could argue the blending is a little better here, but part of that is just the higher quality paper doing its job.

And to be fair, I wanted to keep roughly the same idea as the original painting, but I was purposely trying to refine the overall look, including using some fonts on the computer as reference/basis for the lettering this time around. But I kept the reddish color for the cat, the purple for the background, and even the burgundy lines and gold gel pen border. (Though I did change the pawprint border to a much softer gold that almost looks silver by comparison here; it just felt like the better choice.)

It's interesting to me how the two paintings can be as similar as they are, but also be so different. And it's also interesting since I think this is the first time I've recreated a drawing so close to when I made the original. Usually, my recreations are 3+ years apart time-wise.

How much I've learned about watercolors and using them may not be readily apparent, but I know I've come pretty far since then. I've definitely come quite a ways' from the completely uninspired painting experiences I had in K-12 school. I've since found that mixed media is where my artistic heart really belongs, so I don't think I'll ever be a full-time painter, but it is nice to once in a while focus in on just one medium like this and evaluate the progress I've made since first trying it out. So perhaps in the future, I'll keep a closer eye on older pieces to re-do for just that purpose.

In the meantime, I've got a couple more Valentine-y things coming up and a couple of other projects I'm pretty excited to share with you guys...and maybe some adoptables. Maybe. I want to do them, but they might get pushed into next month or beyond. We'll see.

Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings

Where to find me & my artwork:
My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

Description
Before I get into talking about the art and my process, a little reminder/announcement that the drawing tablet I use for all my digital art and touch-ups/additions to my traditional art (so 60% or more of my work altogether) has succumbed to a hardware issue and I'm trying to drum up funds for a replacement. You can read the full story in this journal entry , and if you'd like to help me out My (traditional) Commissions , dA Printshop , Redbubble (where you can get this very artwork as prints & merch!), and Ko-Fi pages are all great ways to do that, and I thank you so much in advance for doing so. Even just spreading the word helps a lot!

This artwork is now available as a free Coloring Page! A version with the text: I Love Mew Coloring Page And a version without it: I Love Mew Coloring Page (No text)

Hmm. Does this look familiar? If so, that's because I tried remaking Watercolor Kitty , one of my first attempts at branching out into watercolor from about this time last year. I thought it would be a good opportunity to get in an appropriately seasonal piece of art and see how I've improved with my watercolor (and to a lesser extent, cat drawing) skills since then.

Last year, I intended for that image to be uploaded in time for Valentine's Day, but that didn't happen because I was a bit too optimistic about how quickly I could have it painted and prepared once my then-new paints arrived to me. This time I was determined to not let that happen again. Fortunately, this time I already had the paints, so that left me with just actually making the drawing and painting it.

Believe it or not, I used the exact same reference image for this drawing as I did for the original, but I followed the reference more closely and used the style I've been using for all my themed kitty drawings lately. It's still not a 1:1 to the reference, but I'm still pretty pleased with how it turned out.

So I made my little sketch, and then scanned it in and used the method I've been favoring lately of taking the sketch and making the clean lines digitally (in part to force myself to get more accustomed to my non-Cintiq set up) and then print them out and trace them onto the paper of my choosing.

Compared to Watercolor Kitty, this time around I had slightly nicer (not professional quality, but nicer) watercolors to work with, and I went as far as to use some of the 100% cotton watercolor paper I have in my stash, even though by this point I've been working with the same paper from the original painting (Cason XL watercolor paper) that I think I still could've seen an improvement with it all the same. But, I wanted to be sure.

I primarily used my Master's Touch 48 half-pan set watercolors (which I should mention are becoming my favorite among the watercolors I own), but I ended up grabbing a few pastel yellows from my Arteza tube watercolors around the cat's eyes and mouth. While I tried to leave the white of the paper and lift the paint as is the "proper" watercolor technique, the red color had already stained the paper a little too strongly, so I relied on the more opaque nature of the Arteza paints to bring back that lightness I wanted. It's still not as bright as it maybe should be compared to the reference, but because I prefer smooth blending this is as light as I was going to get it and still accomplish that.

Honestly, comparing the two, I'm not sure one is necessarily better than the other. Stylistically, this one feels more refined and the colors are more saturated/vibrant, but that's about it. You could argue the blending is a little better here, but part of that is just the higher quality paper doing its job.

And to be fair, I wanted to keep roughly the same idea as the original painting, but I was purposely trying to refine the overall look, including using some fonts on the computer as reference/basis for the lettering this time around. But I kept the reddish color for the cat, the purple for the background, and even the burgundy lines and gold gel pen border. (Though I did change the pawprint border to a much softer gold that almost looks silver by comparison here; it just felt like the better choice.)

It's interesting to me how the two paintings can be as similar as they are, but also be so different. And it's also interesting since I think this is the first time I've recreated a drawing so close to when I made the original. Usually, my recreations are 3+ years apart time-wise.

How much I've learned about watercolors and using them may not be readily apparent, but I know I've come pretty far since then. I've definitely come quite a ways' from the completely uninspired painting experiences I had in K-12 school. I've since found that mixed media is where my artistic heart really belongs, so I don't think I'll ever be a full-time painter, but it is nice to once in a while focus in on just one medium like this and evaluate the progress I've made since first trying it out. So perhaps in the future, I'll keep a closer eye on older pieces to re-do for just that purpose.

In the meantime, I've got a couple more Valentine-y things coming up and a couple of other projects I'm pretty excited to share with you guys...and maybe some adoptables. Maybe. I want to do them, but they might get pushed into next month or beyond. We'll see.

Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings

Where to find me & my artwork:
My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram