Magnolia Watercolor Painting

I painted along with Lindsay, The Frugal Crafter when she did a Magnolia Watercolor Painting   on February 25th. I did look at the image on Paint My Photo. They are such pretty blossoms. I used one of my little watercolor journals that I made for my cruise to the Bahama's last year. I painted in the car and a couple of times on board. For my journals I cut watercolor paper to 5.50x7.50 and used my Bind It All to punch and bind them together on the O-wires. I also cut a couple of pieces of chip board for the covers and decorated them. I added a pocket to the inside cover of each for tickets and other goodies that I might pick up.
I enjoyed painting along with Lindsay and some day I will learn not to be so heavy handed with the color. That is going to be something I will have to work on. I don't think it turned out to bad for a beginner. I tend to be heavy on the colors no matter what media I use. I do love the look of watercolor, so I will keep on trying and maybe some day I will get that lovely transparent look. For now, I will settle for, it looks like what it is supposed to be and you can actually tell what it is. LOL

Pears

I made my way to the begining Art Quest which is to paint pears with only a picture on paint my photo to go by. Big Art Quest Begins. I sketched them out on watercolor paper and then colored them in. I had done the background first but it looked aweful. I had wet the paper well and tried to drop the colors in and they were not spreading like I wanted them to. I ended up pilling up the paper trying to get them to spread out. So I trace the pears on heavy vellum type paper that I have.  I covered the pears with my mask and wet small sections of the background and tapped on some Brusho Crystal Color in black. It is my favorite because of the mix of burnt sienna and blue crystals. Then I resprayed it to spread the color. After I finished the background I lifted my mask and found out that some of the crystals had gotten under it and splattered on my pears. So much for being careful. LOL I guess I should have made sure it was down better. I also got a little more shadow on the bottom pear. I still love the way it turned out. 

This is my first stab at the acrylic pears. The background ended up being a lot darker than I wanted and you couldn't see the shadows. So I decided to sponge in some burnt sienna on the background to warm it up. I like the way it turned out. No it is not a masterpiece but for no instruction other than paint the pears in the picture I am quite pleased with myself. Had I done it as my very first painting, I think it would have looked very different. After having done a couple of paintings with Cinnamon's guidance, I had at least a few ideas about how to make certain colors. I can't wait to come back to this in a year and do another for comparison. I think it will be a lot of fun to see how much I have learned by then and how different I am at working with these tools.

 

Bat Cat and Fireflies

I did this one several weeks ago in the end of February with Cinnamon Cooney's wonderful Youtube tutorial called  Black Cat Bat Kawaii. Sadly, I lost my internet connection for an hour in the middle of it. I kept going, and thankfully it is acrylic, so I could go over anything I messed up. 

February 23rd we did this fun painting Dandelions and Fireflies . I think my troll likes it.

This scary creature was supposed to be a cat. LOL I was flipping through videos and saw a challenge video....to draw with your feet. Yea, crazy! I had to try it. I started off thinking about drawing a cat and the ears were ok from there it all went downhill, The eyes were definitely a bit un-cat like and then the mouth. Ugg! I realized it looked more like a bull dog, so a bull dog it is. Not bad at all for being drawn with my foot. I continued switching feet and trying to write my name. So this mess was probably the best that came out. I had fun giving it a try though. 

This is a drawing I did. It has been finished with watercolor but I don't have a picture of it. I'll have to post it when I get a chance. 

Mono Printing with the Creative Palette

These are some of the goodies I used in this session for printing. Stencils, a rubber comb, some plastic canvas. As you can see, I really don't clean my stencils.

This is what my creative palette monoprinting plate from Stampendous looked like when I was done. Also on the right is the newsprint pad that I clean off my brayer on. I was also pealing paint off of the palette to see if I could get some good sized pieces to use in artwork. I love letting the layers of paint dry on the palette because in each successive print a bit of that paint will stick and give you surprise colors. Here are a few of my prints that I thought looked the most interesting.

I used a package of cheap watercolor paper for these. It was definitely not anything good enough to watercolor on. I got it to use for cards but it wasn't even good enough for that, so waste not want not. I used it all up in one session of mono printing. I am thinking about making a journal out of all the printed paper. Maybe printing on both sides and then adding stamping and other things.

This one I decided to stamp a border with my new stamps from Stampendous NK Studio Marks. I won these stamps and I must say they are perfect for grunging up packgrounds and using with the Creative Palette. The flower is from the discontinued Blossom Beauty stamp set from Stampendous. Not sure why it was discontinued but you can still get the beauty face stamp. Anyway, I did a whole page of the flower with water soluble crayons and then die cut them. Some of them I layered. I want to write a saying on this to matt and frame it. I just need to decide on what and practice writing it. LOL

Still painting

And having a great time! I am still loving watching Cinnamon teaching acrylic painting. Her Youtube channel has so many lessons and they are all fun just to watch even.
 The Art Sherpa Easy Pug Painting. This one took me a while. It is 16x20. I got tired and would take a break and then play the video again the next day and I played around with colors and changed the shape a bit. I had to change a couple of things. First of all, I had placed my drawing a bit to low and the tongue was off the canvas. The body took up the entire bottom of the canvas and when I stood back from it, it just didn't look right, so I decided to make his body go the the left side of the canvas and bring the background down. I named my pug Walter. Mostly because I was watching Scorpion and I was going to do a yellow swish like Cinnamon's on the top of the canvas. It ended up being a W. So that is where his name came from.. I got to where I thought he was done when I realized that I forgot to give him a lower jaw. I must have changed his forehead at least 4 times. Lastly, I wasn't digging the background color. Bye bye W. Then I decided to add a pattern of circles and I found a gear looking thing to print with. I think it was in the handle when I opened my new Big Shot machine. I am loving it and he looks so fancy in his sweet frame I got 2nd hand.   Now I do have to admit I am not a huge lover of abstract art but I like this and really look forward to doing more in this style of abstracted art.

My next thing to do was one of those wonderful color charts. I didn't do my cheap acrylics. I only did the Golden's which I got when I worked at Michael's and the Liquitex Basics that I got to fill in the colors that I needed to do the paintings with Cinnamon. She uses a pretty regular palette but some of the colors, I just didn't have and can't afford the Golden any more. I ended up making 6 pages of color charts. I had no idea that I had so many tubes of paint. I haven't pulled out the good stuff in years and it is in a cabinet. Out of sight out of mind. Of course there is a video on making this. Big Art Quest #2: Custom Color Chart 

 Beginner painting lesson | Kawaii Elephant with Rainbow Bubbles | Art Sherpa For Kids   I did this today. I love how it came out and I actually did it in one sitting. It is an 8x10 but still I was very happy with being able to do this in an afternoon. There was a near disaster with the black paint. I set my brush down to go answer the phone. I came back and grabbed my brush and got black paint everywhere......except on the painting. Whew! When I was first setting out my paints, I did think about not putting out the black yet since it wouldn't be used until the last. I should have listened to my inner voice on that one ;p

I am so looking forward to continuing this journey. Take a chance and try something new. You never know, you may just find your passion.