Lucy’s coloring book

Color me brightly

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Artist, pattern designer and believer in healing powers of art making.

  • Ever After: Week 1

    And I am already behind! I should be finishing lesson 2 this week and I only just finished 1. Anyway. This was hard, because we were supposed to follow as close as possible what the teacher did, use the same supplies and techniques. It makes me itch and fidget and wish to abandon it and never some back to it again. This is, among other things, another journey in self-discovery. And what I confirmed this week is that, when I am not in the flow, my patience is very limited and my attention span that of a squirrel. However, what I knew from before is that when I decide that something will be done, that something gets done. Eventually.

    Here she is – The Little Mermaid Tam’s way:

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    If you showed it to me, I would never say that it’s mine! LOL! Another thing I confirmed: I do not particularly like Neocolor II. I prefer the traditional watercolor because it flows and moves. I suppose one could treat Neocolors just like the pan watercolor and try to make washes. That remains yet to be tried… What disturbs me is their greasiness… I don’t know. I don’t hate them, but somehow we did not ‘click’. This was completely done with Neocolors, some color pencils, graphite pencil and white gesso and acrylic.

    My favorite part of this painting is surprisingly the seahorse. I was so stressed about the thought of drawing him, that, probably, if I hadn’t followed the lesson closely, I would go without him. What a mistake that would be! You know why? Because I am currently doing a watercolor of seahorse ‘my style’. And I am loving it. And if I haven’t followed the lesson, I would have never discovered my love for seahorses. You will see tomorrow…

    Tomorrow, of course, is back to World Watercolor Month! YAY!

  • World Watercolor Month: Days 11 and 12

    World Watercolor Month: Days 11 and 12

    As I hinted yesterday, here come two darker pieces. These are not ATCs but they are anyway small, only 5″x7″ or 12.5 x 18 cm. What to say… You start painting intuitively and sooner or later ugly things will come up. If you listen, you will hear. And don’t be surprised. This is what you were seeking for. This is healing through art. Be strong.

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    Captive.
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    Mourning.

  • World Watercolor Month: Days 9-11

    This is the first time I am ahead of challenge! I can’t believe, but there must be something between me and watercolor. Is it love? It’s days 11 and I have 12 ATCs and those yupos and since last night also two larger size works. Anyway, today I posting just the ATCs I did for the challenge.

    The first one is this pink-blue flower or something. I did the orange splashes first and then worked around them. I don’t know what’s with me and this work-around stuff, but I seem to enjoy it 😀

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    The second one is a colorful ATC done the same day:

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    The third is called ‘bored lady’ this is how she looked to me. She is saying: yeah yeah, all that colors and bubbles… and what about the deep sh*t? When are you going to deal with that?

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    I listened, so this last one for today is a bit darker:

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    And after that I did too even darker pieces, but I will show them tomorrow.

  • World Watercolor Month: Days 7-8

    So, my abstract watercolor ATC challenge is continuing. I have made two ATCs and one Yupo abstract over for days 7 and 8.

    The first one is an ATC on cold pressed watercolor paper:

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    The second I did is this Yupo color mixing and doodling:

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    A friend of mine on Instagram wrote it looks like turkey 😀 I can see some bird features, such as three wings… I could imagine this on my t-shirt!

    And the third one I made last night is ATC on hot-pressed paper with two funny faces hiding in between shapes:

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    Tomorrow is my traveling day, so I will probably not post, but I will keep painting. Very happy with what I achieved this week, even though I had to spend days in the office. Seems that small size abstracts are quick and achievable. They are also quite pretty I think 🙂

  • Watercolor ATC Leaf

    For today there is just a video of how I made the leaf ATC I posted earlier for #worldwatercolormonth. Enjoy!

  • World Watercolor Month Days 4-6

    This is working guys! I managed not to miss a single day out of six, and actually I made two the day before yesterday. YAY! As I said, or maybe I did not, I am doing abstracts this week, because it’s my “office week” and I have not got too much time for “complicated” subjects. But it has been great fun to do these and maybe I continue with abstracts even next week. Maybe forever 😀

    Anyway, here they are… The first one is red and blue ATC.

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    And then, as it was a happy mail day and I received some Yupo paper from my US friend, I decided that I will try it with watercolor. I was delighted. The color does not get absorbed and consequently stays bright and shiny when dry. You must try it!

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    And then, last night I was back to the ATCs. I used cold-pressed paper this time. I really like how it turned out. Looks like some big funky flower…

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    And, finally this morning, I got up at 4.55 AM eeek… So I thought it’s pure luck that makes some unexpected time for painting and blogging. I used hot-pressed paper again, and look who appeared! It looks scary to me, but what can  I do… Maybe it’s because of the early start 😀

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  • ICAD: two videos

    I am in the middle of experimenting with watercolors this month and it’s making me so happy. But last week I have recorded two videos, which I haven’t shared with you. They are already on YouTube. Both are ICAD projects, but also use watercolor, so I am not moving away from this month’s topic 🙂

     

    They are very quick and simple cards, but were fun to make. ICAD is perfect project for experimenting with stuff. Something like this I would never do in my journal, but felt ok for the index card. A bit like card-making, which I never did in my life 🙂 So, I hope you will enjoy them… For tomorrow, I have a bright and colorful post in mind for World Watercolor Month challenge…

  • World Watercolor Month Days 1-3

    World Watercolor Month Days 1-3

    So, I undertook one more challenge, in addition to Life Book, Book of Days, ICAD, Art Journal Summer School and Ever After… But it was too tempting to miss. So I decided to do an ATC a day and up until now it’s been a success. I mean doing them. They are not so pretty, but here is my chance to improve. 27 days to go, I must learn something, right? Anyway, this will be a busy week, and I already decided that there will be some abstract watercolors on my ATCs this week, but the three I am showing you today are not, Here they are:

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    The first one is just an imaginary leaf. I used some gold leaf and modelling paste in the background. The second one is a peach, which does not look very much like a peach, but that’s fine. Practice is what counts.

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    The next day I decided that maybe I should stick to other objects that may be easier… so I painted another eye:

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    I like the previous one better. I think I am using too much paint, somehow the strokes are too bold. I will need to water down the paint a bit next time 🙂

    So that’s it for the first three days. I did also some ICAD project and recorded a couple videos last week. I will post those tomorrow.

     

     

  • Eye in Watercolor

    Getting ready for the World Watercolor Month… I thought I would try how it’s going to work, because I plan to paint on ATC size paper, just to be able to do one a day. I am not sure if it will be possible even that small. I have two art courses currently running, two more starting on July 1st, ICAD challenge and now this. Ah, yes, and a full time job and part time school. And I am known to bite more than I can chew, why do you ask? Anyways… Let’s keep the spirits up! This is what I did today:

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    It’s my very first realistic eye in watercolor. I did have a hard time doing it, so I am rather happy that it looks anything close to a decent eye 🙂 . It took a bit more than an hour… And here’s the video if you are curious to see how I suffered.

    I think I do not like hot pressed paper… It’s quite unforgiving. I will try with cold pressed next time.

  • Selfie

    Meet the artist :D. It does look quite like me, except that I wear glasses, but did not dare try to paint them.

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    This was done for Life Book 2016 with watercolors and white acrylic. It was real fun once I started, even though I felt a bit reluctant to start in the first place. This time left eye looks bigger or is it maybe just because it’s on the sunny side of the face?! In reality it is not… I think… 🙂 So, nice meeting you all.