Watercolor scene

I often use Pinterest to find inspiration for colors, techniques and landscapes. When I saw this waterside forest full of loose, watery images, I knew I wanted to give it a try. 

I sketched in the largest elements and started painting in the vivid colors. 

I layered on the base colors. Then added layers and layers of color to create depth. 

Lastly, my favorite part - adding pencil lines to add details.  I love the depth that is created by just allowing the pencil to dance across the paper.  I merely suggest where it might go next.  It sometimes listens and sometimes not. 

Free Class!

If you know me, you know I am a HUGE Jessica Sprague fan.  She taught me everything I know about PhotoShop and Digital Scrapbooking.  She is an amazing teacher.   When she offers a FREE class,  I recommend jumping on it! And this one has a bonus if she reaches 10K students!

Click here and get registered! 

Sharing Art

Last night I had several neighbors in for what they call "Art Therapy".  It is so rewarding to offer a creative environment where friends can express themselves artistically.   The happiness of creating something beautiful in an inspiring room with everything you need at your fingertips is contagious.  It feeds them and it feeds me. What a win-win evening.

Recent Instagrams

I am so enjoying using Instagram on a regular basis again. The support, the community, the inspiration is there. I am loving it. If you are not a member, join us. The conversation is worth your time.

Built with Turbo Collage app

Inks

I wanted to try the watercolor inks that I found at Hobby Lobby recently.  I drew a rough sketch just to get an idea of what went where.

The inks are very saturated. I was using 1/2 a drop, adding water and watching it paint for a very long time.  That was surprising.

I threw the color down very fast just to get a feel for intensity, how much water do you use, and how does this differ from tube watercolors?

I grabbed a black fine point pen and a Signo white pen and doodled on it and within 15 minutes I had a quick little floral. I liked the inks.  They are highly concentrated and I clearly have a lot to learn about how to work with them.  

More play - more learning. Gotta love that!

This weekend...

This weekend I will be cracking open this new toy and hoping I can figure out how to use them.  If you have any advice, please leave it in the comments - I will be very grateful!

Learning to Draw

It started with this sketch.  It is a family member.  She does not look anything like this. Drat! I was working from a photograph and while I made tremendous progress on shading and understanding light (yay!), it does not look like her - at all.  The good thing is that I can look at it and point out what I did wrong which seems very hopeful.  The chin is shaped wrong, her forehead is too short, her mouth is wonky.  Her hoodie is dead on. (ha ha!)

Enter Help-

Roben-Marie had this book at a recent retreat and it looked good.  So I ordered it from Amazon. I cracked it open looking for help. I started to skip over the first lessons thinking "i can do that" and then decided that starting at the beginning made sense.

Drawing exercises commenced.

The shaded apple. Standard fare but again helping me understand light, shadow and dimension.

Then I skipped over to the faces section because that is what I really want to improve. I found the eyes section and looked at it and said, "I can't do that!"  Then I would have to talk to myself -

"did you try?"

"NO! I will suck at it!"

"TRY!"

I did it.

Next... mouth and noses.

I can't do that!!

Art on Vacation

I love seeing art in many forms outside my usual places.

photo credit: Barbara Moore

Joe and I were in EPCOT enjoying the Flower and Garden Festival. It was beautiful. It amazes me how much artistry there is in the world and in nature when you are looking for it.

Some of it man made, most of it God made. Beauty, color, composition all there for the inspirational taking.

Texture, line and form.  Beauty in every glance.

Watercolor - wet on wet

I have been playing with wet on wet techniques with my watercolors. I stumbled across a watercolor artist in Slovakia, Jane Beata, that does some amazing work that blew me away. I watched her YouTube speed painting video with my mouth hanging open and drooling.

I am drawn to watercolor because of  its sheerness and unexpected movements.  I am not currently interested in using watercolor as just another painting medium. I love it because it moves in unexpected ways and is imperfect and glorious if you can step away and let it do its thing without overworking it seeking perfection. Yes, it is a metaphor for a way of life.

Wet paper is not something I have ever worked on before. I am learning how color moves and how much water is too much. Don't have either concept down yet but the playing is mostly fun and free and a bit frustrating because it is harder than I expected.

My backgrounds were still not as vivid as I wanted them to be because of all the water diluting the pigment. So I tried stretching the paper - which means soaking it before you paint on it so that the fibers are expanded.

I got more vivid colors with this one. So maybe stretching the paper is necessary.

Stretching in art is always a good thing, don't you think?

Explorations

Working in my art journal learning about how to create dimensionality.

It is so interesting to me what light and shadow can do.

Sketching and adding shadow to create a feel of 3-D. Learning how to use a blending stump.

Sticking with it and trying to take it a step further each time. Thankful for friends who teach and encourage at the same time.  That is my most helpful tool. Thank you, Lorraine!

Playing with Pan Pastels

Pan Pastels are something that intrigued me but I had never used them as a portrait medium.  I have seen videos of artists using them in place of paint and the results are amazing. I wanted to see what it was like to create with them.  My friend, Lorraine, was kind enough to give me carte blanche with hers.

I sketched a face on vintage ledger paper and started coloring in the shadows. I am a novice when it comes to shadows and highlights and don't fully understand it yet but I was determined to try with Lorraine's assistance.  If you haven't seen her portraits yet, you are missing out on some inspiring artwork!

Eyes and lips certainly helped her look more lifelike.  I wanted to play with shadows in deep colors. I achieved that quite well.  Blending? Not there yet.

Here she is finished with scrapbook paper added for her flower and blouse.  I really like her as she shows real progress. I would love to learn more about pan pastels and shadows and light. I love trying new things!

Winner of my cards

I have chosen Sharon as the winner of my cards. Thank you so much to everyone who visited and commented. Thank  you again to my talented friend, Roben-Marie for inviting me to be a part of her Design Team.

Roben-Marie Smith BLOG HOP!

Welcome to my stop on the Mixed Media Essentials Stamp line blog hop by Roben-Marie Smith.

Roben-Marie and I have been friends for 4+ years.  I was looking through a journaling book and saw that she lived in my town.  We met one day as strangers at a local coffee shop and left as friends.  We get together for Art Day whenever our schedules permit and our relationship has taken us on many adventures. 

We are pretty much opposites in personality - she is fast paced, energetic and wordy. I am slower paced, detail oriented and love quiet conversations one on one.  I follow her whirlwind conversations and she moves slower to accommodate my pace.  Our common ground is that art is an essential part of who we are and what makes us happy.  And we both are Burt's Bees lip gloss addicts. We often give each other lip gloss as gifts!

photo credit: Roben-Marie Smith

Roben-Marie's new stamp line may be mixed media essentials but really, it is quintessentially HER. There is no doubt even at a glance, who created them.  These designs show up in her art repeatedly. RM's style is one part quirk, two parts messy with buckets of talent thrown in.  I am honored to be a part of her Paperbag Studios design team!

photo credit: Roben-Marie Smith

I loved working with RM's stamps because they forced me to look at things differently. I started stamping them in color and that's where I took off creatively.   I saw candy coated circles, rainbow colored raindrops, leaves, watercolor flowers, doodled arrows and completely lickable images. 

Color Palette

Circle Flowers

Chevron backed flower

Flower Spray

Dear Friend

Rainbow Rain

I would love to give away the three cards I made. If you would like to win these stamped and doodled cards, please leave a comment. I do love mail art so the cards may come in a artsy package just for the winner!

Please visit these talented artists and see their amazing creations.  And as always - leave some love! OR Ready to visit the store? Click here!

April Cole:  http://aprilmariecole.blogspot.com/

Carissa Paige:  http://carissapaige.blogspot.com/

Cynthia Shaffer: http://cynthiashaffer.typepad.com/

Danielle Donaldson:  http://danielledonaldson.com/

Jen Osborn:  http://identityseven.typepad.com/themessynest/

Kristin Peterson: http://alteredstatesstudio.blogspot.com/

Lorraine Bell: http://serendipitystudios.squarespace.com/

Roben-Marie Smith: http://www.robenmarie.com/blog/2013/5/1/mixed-media-essentials-blog-hop.html

Sandi Keene: http://sandi-keene.squarespace.com/

Thank you for stopping by!

Watercolor Playground - 21 Secrets

You know anything called Watercolor Playground had my attention right away. Tammy Garcia's class has several project that are playful and fun. 

These Word Bubbles were lots of fun to create. Lorraine, say hello to your former watercolor paints! Of course, you know I had to make them into something for Mail Art!

These will be so colorful sewn to a Mail Art piece. Black thread or variegated? Always my dilemma.  I love them both.  Maybe white for a change?!

Playing with stripes of color. Yum.

It culminated into this final piece of playful doodling and exploration.

I vote YES!

Playing with new stamps-

I was so honored when Roben-Marie Smith asked me if I would like to play with her new Mixed Media Essentials stamps and make samples.  I put down a big sheet of bristol paper and grabbed my brand new spring colored ink pads (FYI - I am a big fan of the Studio G ink pads in the $1.50 bin at Michael's - who knew?!)  I started experimenting and making notes on the sheet when inspiration came my way.

I kept playing and playing until both sides of the 11x17 paper were full.  My samples have been finished for quite some time now but I just can't bring myself to throw this sheet away.  There is something about it that just makes me happy.  In fact, I keep adding to it as I work on other projects. 

Sometimes inspiration comes from the most unlikely places.

Go Green - 21 Secrets

I am really enjoying the 21 Secrets classes.  I started with Rae Missigman's Go Green altered book.  Loved making the book - struggled with coptic binding - I am so not good at it! Rae explained to me that it allowed the pages to lay flat for painting and then it made sense.  So, my binding is a snotty mess - oh, well!

Go Green Book completed

Thank you!

Thank you to you all for the welcome back to the blogging world! You sure know how to make a girl feel loved. I so appreciate your comments.

Let's see where this leads...

I must be ...

My dear friend, Lorraine, has been gently prodding me to return to blogging.  I said NO for a long time. I do not know what came over me to think that blogging again was a good idea.  And especially learning a new blogging format too!

What was I thinking!?