Watercolor Has An Unpredictable Character That Lets Me Create Expressive Animal Paintings

by Patrick Penrose Published Nov 11, 2025

When I was a little boy, I lived in the countryside in a modest little family. My parents did not have enough money to buy me fancy toys. As compensation, my mother gave me a drawing book and a set of markers. From that very moment, I’ve spent most of my time sketching and perfecting drawing techniques instead of playing. For me, a piece of paper is a playground that could be filled with anything. I have the freedom to build my imagination, and I know from the very beginning that I have found my joy of life. Since I was in kindergarten until high school, I continued to harness my skill autodidactically. I was challenged to use various mediums, such as pencils, crayons, and oil. Until one day, I discovered the watercolor paint, which has specific difficulty on its own that caught my heart.

Doing watercolor paintings I don’t really give too much attention to the rules and techniques. What I do is understanding the character of the watercolor, the paper, and the water itself. Watercolor drawings have a wet, expressive, and unpredictable character. For instance, if I want to make an expressive and colorful painting, I’ll be using wet on wet technique a lot, letting the water run freely on the paper and playing with splashes. The result sometimes doesn’t meet the plan, but that is exactly the beauty of this unique art. When we reach the understanding of watercolor, we can easily conquer it.

The next thing needed is an inspiration for these beautiful drawings. Inspiration can come from everywhere. For me, especially, nature provides unfathomable inspirations. The living of creatures and adorable animals in the wild never fails to excite me the most. On the other side, I’m an emotional and touchy person. I fall in love facilely for beautiful things. I’m quickly shed tears when I read a sad novel or watch the sorrowful event in real life or even fiction. Those things motivate me to create watercolor paintings that contain stories about life in the manner of metaphors. So I turn an ordinary animal picture into imaginative illustration.

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