somnubis

🔹 watercolor artist 🔹 she/her 🔹 grumpy, anxious and socially awkward 🔹also me: @grumpy-g 🪰

[somnubis]

"Silence"

[somnubis]

Finally scanned😪

[somnubis]

Ref

[somnubis]

Wip

[somnubis]

Referenced from this wonderful photography

[somnubis]

Aaaaand done

28😎

I just realised that I can also shuffle them and pick random!

[somnubis]

This is what I'm talking about! Yay!!!

Extremely useful shit.

I'm still not finished, though... There are more 12 of them to make.

Guess who's gonna be fooling around in the park and comparing everything with those cards like a crazy 🥴🥴🥴

[somnubis]

This is what I'm doing instead of drawing tonight😁😁😁😁

My standard swatching system wasted a lot of paper and was too complicated. I used to make it like an addition chart (each paint pair gives a mix) + swatches for some gradients.

It became a big problem, since I switched to a new main palette of 8 paints instead of 5-6 (with possible extension in the future!). I don't want to buy another paper block just to understand which paints I'm going to use and how they blend together. Or reswatch everything in order to keep it organised. So I decided: fuck that table and fuck those long gradients. Truth is: I don't really need gradients, they only distract. Key values are easier to understand and keep. And I came up with a new flexible approach, which wastes less paper.

I'm going to cut this page into tiles like this:

Where X,Y are every possible pair of the main palette. And also my own simple codes for them, written along the right edge.

That allows me to make absolutely unbelievable things with palettes!!! I can sort them differently, I can pick any of them, look at them separately, connect them... Omg.... so much to try! Now it is possible to apply different color grading and even develop new by playing with them like lego. And I can also check e v e r y t h i n g that I could with the previous system. Absolutely the same info, except this one is more accessible and fun to interact with. And you know what else?

I can keep the information about the palette of every painting as codes on the other side of a paper to have a quick access to their real swatches without wasting paint!

...

I'm sure I'm not the first to come up with this, but maybe it still could be useful for someone who hasn't heard about it and I'm just so excited to share to be honest!!!!

P.S. I didn't check here how they flow and bloom, it needs to be tested of course, but I used cheaper paper for that, since it's slightly less important for me personally. The main focus here is on the color itself rather than on the paint's properties.

This system could be applied to opaque media as well. In that case the second row of a tile could be used for mixes with white.

[somnubis]

Hey there! I wanted to let you know that I reported your account when I meant to report someone else. It was a mistake, and I hope it didn’t cause any issues. I received a ticket from Tumblr and can share it with you if you’d like I'm not able to send you a message right now, though, and I’m not sure why.

Uh, another scam... be careful, guys. The more people report accounts like this, the better

Btw dm is open, you can message if you have a clear purpose

[somnubis]

[somnubis]

Wip. This one could've been a plein air, but you know how it happens. Not a single bench around and then a sudden rain appears right in the middle of perfect lighting conditions... So I took a shot and continued at home.

[somnubis]

Testing new palette

Ref

[somnubis]

I burnt this candle while was fingerpainting it on my phone... It feels almost like blind drawing because I can't see what is under my finger, but also it's fun because I'm less critical of myself. Strange thing.

[somnubis]

I'm taking a break from drawing. Feeling depressed and overwhelmed lately... It won't last long, hopefully.

[somnubis]

[somnubis]

[somnubis]

Happy birthday, Katharina, my furious and brave daughter!

Can't believe I came up with her just a bit more than one year ago, on the 24th of June 2025.

It's time to let her meet the world... I have never named her in public, even though I already shared a few sketches.