Four months into the year of being intentional with watercolor painting, and I’m learning my style more and more. I’m going to obviously leave room for change and evolution. But right now, these are what describe my style as an artist (can I even call myself that?!)

I started out painting animals in a whimsical but realistic style. Humans were something I avoided for a long time. But once I started, they naturally took on that same soft, storybook feel. Now my work resembles a storybook in every little watercolor I paint.

I really love painting animals that bring whimsy, so now that I’ve built up the confidence to even try humans, I found that each human had to have an animal in there with them. I couldn’t include a sweet animal in the mix.

More than a year ago, I self-published a children’s picture book. At the time, I had little confidence in my watercolors or drawings. Other people had that confidence in me, but I didn’t have it in myself. Since I’ve been intentional in my art, I’ve had friends and family say, I wish you had done the art in your book! But at that time, I remember drawing a little girl to represent Quinn, and it wasn’t it. I actually decided right then and there to find an illustrator because it just wasn’t it.

Now, I feel confident I could take on illustrating a children’s picture book, and my style would really come through. I’m so proud of my first book, even though I had to find an illustrator. I love the illustrations and worked really hard with the illustrators to get the book to where it is.

So here are the paintings I did this week that tell a story in and of themselves.

You’ll see that my blush on the humans moved to the outer edges of their cheeks. I like this style better. In the coming weeks, I’m also going to be messing around with head sizes to really nail down what I like. You will also notice that hands are hard. I’m going with a four-finger situation. But the first painting I did had five fingers, and it felt a little too much.

The paintings I did in order were:

First painting: girl with a goose

Second painting: Grandma with a cat

Third painting: farmer girl with chickens