Color me brightly
I managed to finish two Life Book lessons this week. One I already posted here. The other one was a collaboration between Tam and Jane, hence my attempt to paint two different style faces. I do not know if they are supposed to be friends or mother and daughter, or both at the same time, because that’s possible too.
Vitamin Sea continues. One more big challenge : stencils with watercolor sprays for background which didn’t really work. Jane used pastel paper and I used rough watercolor paper which seems to be too absorbent. I sprayed and sprayed and made almost muddy mess.
Then came drawing with soft pastel… turned face I think my second ever… there was lots of suffering but pastel is very forgiving… so it finally worked and I am totally happy with her.
I love this course! It’s so far the best of all art courses I’ve ever taken.
Vitamin Sea course is very good, I admit. It’s very challenging for me and I learn things. I’ve worked on the kind of bonus lesson for two days. It would have been piece of cake if I knew how to draw full body, but I did not. So, after an hour of just drawing two mermaids in movement (preceded by many exercises), I was finally happy with how they looked. I had to stop though because I felt exhausted! So today was just painting and shading with color pencils. I am not sure if they are finished, but I am leaving them for the time being. Maybe I will go back to them at some point later…
Yesterday I finished last week’s Life Book lesson. I was lazy to start but I have to say that I really liked the making of it. And I love how it turned out:
The vase is a cut-out from my painting palette (there is a stencil mark visible too) and it dictated the colors I used for flowers, because the teacher’s were different. I have to say I love mine better :D. I am so excited about this signal magenta – it’s my very favorite color. The background was done with watercolor and I used my sprays which I prepared for Vitamin Sea class. I have to say it’s a brilliant idea to make watercolor sprays: you can make a stunning background in seconds. Of course you cannot see any of it because it got covered by collage and acrylic paint :). The flowers and leaves are cut-outs from an old copy of Kama Sutra (I never read it and never will, and it was printed on such bad paper that it had got this natural vintage look, perfect for collaging, so I could not resist). I haven’t used acrylics in a while, so this was quite a refreshment… Off to catch-up with Vitamin Sea today…
As I said in my last post, I have re-discovered my Black Book and one unfinished drawing inside. And having my new white ink to test, it was a perfect opportunity to finish it.
I loved doing the little details… This all reminds me of a stash of black paper I had somewhere… Hmmm…. I could make another Black Book… and get ready for January because I will do mu challenge again!
BTW, I am quite pleased with the ink 🙂 and if you are wondering, it’s Schmincke Aerocolor acrylic ink and I used it in a Rotring 0.5 technical pen. Colored dots are Liquid Pearls.
It’s been one busy week and I did not do much art. Last two days I’ve been back to my Black Book – discovered an unfinished mandala kind of something there and have been working on it, doodling with white pen and making dots with Perfect Pearls. It was meditative and soothing. As that one is not finished yet, I am not posting it now. Rather here are the two faces and two messages I did in She Thinks Positive Journal.
Do you see how her eyes are not at the same level?! Imagine that I did not notice it before she was almost done!!! And then it was too late. Ah well… I used color pencils to add definition and detail on top of watercolor. It works well.
Today is a big local holiday. There will be huge fireworks tonight. I hope it will not rain 🙂
For today I have an update in my She Thinks Positive Journal. This week I managed to do a face and an affirmation every day. Next week is my office week and it will probably not happen, but let’s think positive, it might 🙂
Here are the pages from 14 to 18. In one of them I tried to do a profile and of course I had to use an eraser because I cannot get it right really. So that one deviated a bit from my rule in this journal. Obviously, I will have to practice doing profiles and half-profiles, because I never do them and I do not know how, so… Practice, practice I will 🙂 There will be more erasing…
Out of these five I love the last one best even though her eyes and her nostrils are not on the same level… What I like is her dreamy expression and her hair. Also her message is very applicable in this moment 🙂
Which one resonates with you today?
The other day we were at a lake, sitting in the shade and drinking beer and I was watching the water randomly moving and reflecting light. It was quite a meditative moment in which I realized that the water color is not blue or green but strangely brownish with blue, white and even black. Quite beautiful. Inspired by that, I made this watercolor page in my journal.
An IG friend said it looks like donuts and after looking longer I thought it’s a bit like cinnamon rolls 🙂
Here is a detailed shot. I used Daniel Smith Primatek and Schmincke watercolors. It’s such a joy to see them granulate and flow, especially the gold and sepia brown. Just look at that! I am in love with watercolors.
As I said, after the world watercolor month, I have big plans on doing my course work. I am trying to keep up with the Life Book. I have to say that I am doing fine. I skipped one lesson which I definitely did not like, and I started and did not finish three more, but that’s ok. This week I did two lessons that I really liked and that were quick and easy. Perfect! Here they are:
One new course that I started is the Vitamin Sea with Jane Davenport. I did not plan on taking any more classes, but as this one was all about the watercolors, figure drawing and sea creatures (including seahorses :)))) I decided that it is what I really need at this moment. Up until now we made our journals out of various sorts of watercolor paper and made the ‘tide lines’. This is how it looks:
Did you spot the seahorse? 🙂 It is going to be exciting, I am sure.
My Ever After course is not going so well. I felt very intimidated by a third lesson which required really elaborate face and hand painting in acrylic and I could not start it at all… The fourth lesson was by Jane Davenport, consisting of three parts. I finished part one:
I thought I already posted this here, but I am not sure any longer. Anyway, you will forgive me if I did. I started the second part of the lesson this week and will hopefully finish it tomorrow. It is going quite slowly in this course because the lessons are quite difficult and videos are very long. They are downloadable however, so I should take it easy.
So, that’s about it for today. I plan barbecue for dinner and can hardly wait 🙂 Wish you a good day!
I feel that summer is slowly leaving us. Mornings are colder and days are not so hot any longer. Cool mornings help my running routine, but that’s about as positive as I can be about it. Along with the drop in temperature, sadness slowly creeps in and that terrifies me. I do what I can. This journal is one thing. Here are pages I haven’t shared yet (8-13 of 120). ‘She is grounded’ is my favorite. Which is yours?
Lucy’s coloring book 