Almost Done War Pony

I like to draw faces. I don't plan usually who it is or anything. I just start drawing. This one actually turned out to look like one of my neighbors. I used olive and lavender undertones in her skin. 

During all the packing no one was allowed to pack my colored pencils and 1 coloring book and 1 sketch pad, watercolors(just 1 travel set) or a selection of acrylic paints and brushes that are on my desk. I have a couple of canvases to finish work on and a few more I wouldn't mind doing. Since all my packing is done except the necessities I will have 3 weeks to play with my art, that is if I can keep from killing myself before we move. I'd appreciate that! 

I just finished the War Pony with the exception of getting my nephews little paw prints on it. I asked their mom to have them print on tissue paper so I can attach them. We'll see how that works. I would have them do it directly on the painting, but I could just see my little minion sliding his hand across the whole canvas and I just can't get that picture out of my head. LOL

Spring???

I took this picture yesterday to show off the crab apple trees in bloom already. To make it interesting for my art friends, and to show off my work in progress. I am painting the ASL Fantasy Native American War Pony Beginner tutorial in Acrylic. This is where I left off after adjusting the head a bit. I plan on working on it some more today.

I was on the computer and listening to a drawing tutorial and thinking about the rule of thirds and doodling. This is what I made. Tic Tac Oh! I was using a Sketch and Wash pencil, so I was able to add a little shading.  Then I drew a bunch of junk on my desk. Wow! I am impressed with my self. LOL

Here is the drawing I posted the other day before I painted her in with Brusho's. It's just a basic face sketch and here she is all colored in. I adjusted the color a bit on the second one so it would show up better. This video was my inspiration to give it a try- watercolor painting with Magenta's Nuance pigment powders  by Creationsceecee

 

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.

What's new! 2016

I have really gotten into watching Cinnamon Cooney The Art Sherpa lately and decided to break out the acrylic paints. She does an awesome job of breaking things down for people to follow along. I used an old canvas that I had covered over with Gesso to try to cover the old painting. You can still see the outlines from the vase and oranges. Even with that I decided to go ahead and figured If it didn't turn out very well it wouldn't be a huge loss.

I had trouble with the ropes and could not get them the way I wanted them to look. I ended up painting over them and trying again. I still don't love the way they look but from a distance they look fine and so I left them. I also, while trying to blend out the new colors found that the paint was leaving swoosh marks under the swing and I liked that. It seems to add to the idea of motion. I do like the way it turned out and can't believe that I actually painted it.

After almost 2 months of waiting for them to come from England I finally got the Brusho powdered watercolors. I love these! The black is probably my favorite because of the colors that go into making it.

Yup, that's black or it would be if it was mixed. I got 20 colors. 5 of them are reds, which I don't recommend because 3 of them I can't tell apart.

These are some of the pages I made in my hand made watercolor journals.This stamp is Stampendous Glance colored with colored pencils before sprinkling the Brusho's on.

These stamps are also from Stampendous. I had previously watercolored a bunch of these flowers with water soluble oil pastels from Portfolio. Her hair is questionable. LOL Especially after I added the colored pencil on top. Reminds me of my bed head when my hair gets longer.

That's it for this post! See ya soon!